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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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http://www.archive.org/details/citytidesOOcoat 



CITY TIDES 



ARCHIE AUSTIN COATES 



CITY TIDES 

BY 

ARCHIE AUSTIN COATES 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 



"What hurrying human tides, or day or night I 
What 'passions, winnings, losses, ardors swim thy waters I 
What whirls of evil, bliss and sorrow, stem thee I 
What curious questioning glances — glints of love!" 

W.W. 




NEW XJEjr YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






Copyright, 1918, 
By George H. Doran Company 



Printed in the United States of America 

OCT 10 Ibia 

€)Ci.A506130 






? 

^ 



TO 

FIVE FELLOW-TRAVELERS 

WHO POINTED OUT THE WAY 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

For permission to reprint certain of these verses 
which have appeared in their pages, acknowledg- 
ment is made to the publishers of The Delineator, 
Collier^s, Poetry: a Magazine of Verse, The New 
York Tribune and The Madrigal. 



[vii] 



INTRODUCTION 

The late Richard Watson Gilder once wrote a 
poem in which he told of the joy the world feels when 
the voice of a new singer is heard. I knew what he 
meant when I discovered Masefield one Autumn day 
as I sat in a park in Chester. I was on my way 
to Liverpool to catch a steamer, and in a little book- 
stall I bought a copy of the English Review, and 
read for the first time "The Everlasting Mercy." 
I remember that I was alone; and of course one's 
first impulse at such a time is to spread the good 
tidings. I could scarcely wait to reach the boat; 
and there, luckily, I found a host of appreciative 
companions. That copy of the English Review 
looked as if it had been through many a storm when 
we finally reached home. 

Now I do not mean to preface this sheaf of song 
by young Mr. Coates with any such rash statement 
that here is a great poet, that a new planet is swim- 
ming into our ken, or that hfe has found an original 
interpreter. But I do mean to declare very em- 
phatically that here is an authentic voice; a young 
man with much to say, who knows how to say it; 
a maker of free verse, who knows the value of pause 

[ix] 



INTRODUCTION 



and tone and stress ; a youth who may go far if the 
poison of the city does not eat his heart away too 
soon. And I want to share my delight in him with 
the lovers of beauty and truth. 

It has not always been possible for me to shout 
the praises of vers libre. My quarrel wdth the 
imagists, the vorticists, and the other "ists" has been 
their seeming inability to say simple things simply. 
I have always thought of them as running away 
from life rather than toward it; and with few ex- 
ceptions — always I except Miss Amy Lowell, who is 
a real force in our literature — I passed by their 
opaque lines as one might pass an empty board fence. 

To have something to say about this strange busi- 
ness of living; to be a part of the "city tides" that 
overtake us every day and carry us to mysterious 
regions — that is Mr. Coates. His poems some- 
times- — perhaps too often — are mere fragments ; but 
one has the sense that they have come from a whole 
heart, and that, like a flame, there is still plenty left 
to draw upon. He is not always sustained; but he 
is always compelling. His moods are not only his 
moods, but yours, and mine ; and in some swift, pene- 
trating phrase he lets us into the circle of his vision, 
and we find ourselves expressed through him. Then, 
too, and best of all, he has that deep pity for the 
poor which is so essential a quality if one is to 

[x] 



INTRODUCTION 



interpret the hive of Manhattan. It is not the pass- 
ing pity of youth — a pity which will be swallowed up 
in "business" before the poet has reached the antique 
age of thirty. It is the enduring pity of a boy who 
sees not only around and through life, but clairvoy- 
antly underneath it. He understands the pathos of 
a vagrant on a park bench; but he is saved from 
maudlin and effeminate rhapsodising through the 
divine grace of humour. His vagabond speaks, and 
while one retains his pity for him, the spell has some- 
how been broken, and we discover that there are two 
sides of this human shield, after all, and we smile 
where we might have wept indiscriminating tears. 

In that portion of the volume labeled "A Maga- 
zine Publishing Office," a surprising and daring origi- 
nality is shown. To extract poetry out of this 
commonplace work-room is something that any of us 
might have been proud to accomplish. I see and 
know Stockton, Hutchins, Sampson, and the rest, as 
if I had met them only this morning. They are 
as real as Mr. Masters' Spoon River folk — indeed, 
they seem to me, while in no way an imitation, to take 
rank with those immortal dead of our great Chicago 
poet; to be as articulate as they. "The Office 
Confrere" might almost have been included in this 
group ; the stupid fellow whose heart could not be 
reached by the simple poem, and who all the while the 

[xi] 



INTRODUCTION 



young poet was leaning over him, hoping he was 
touched, was at last found to be only studying the 
Cheltenham type! It is little short of amazing to 
get this upon paper, and to make it seem as real as 
the event itself. 

A young poet's flirtations are always an interest- 
ing indication ; and "A Resume of Ladies" is perhaps 
more illuminating than it was intended to be. We 
must not be too hard on these light loves, however, 
for they pave the way to the greater glory. 
"Through the many to the one," you remember ; and 
while these foolish adventures in a pasteboard world 
of love-making are not to be taken at all seriously, 
they have their value. They are a study in self- 
revelation. They show that the poet is clean- 
minded, though he is always frankly and humanly 
curious about women and love. 

Mr. Coates can turn from free verse without the 
slightest trouble and write a deft sonnet or a rhymed 
couplet or a musical lyric. These experiments are 
the most annoying thing in the collection; for they 
only serve to prove that Mr. Coates is even more 
of a poet than he reveals on a first reading, and they 
will drive the abhorrers of vers libre frantic with 
the thought that a genuine singer has purposely lost 
himself in a tangle of unrhymed, chopped-oif stanzas. 

But it is not true ! There is a language between 

[xii] 



INTRODUCTIOX 



Poetry and Prose where one finds, oftentimes, his 
best means of expression. There is a middle ground 
between earth and heaven where none should go but 
the true poet ; for he can make even those arid wastes 
bloom with something akin to roses and drifts of 
applebloom. Through his mere venturing into the 
mysterious and frequently exasperating country of 
vers libre he makes it magical and musical, if he does 
not make it glorious and great. 

On such a pilgrimage Mr. Coates has gone; and 
I am glad that I was fortunate enough to go with 
him. He is a new poet of the city, wise with a wis- 
dom beyond his years, blest with vision and com- 
prehension. 

Charles Hanson Towne. 



[xiii] 



CONTENTS 
PART ONE: CITY TIDES 

PAGE 

THE TICKET SELLER 21 

"common" 23 

WASTE 25 

MUSETTA 26 

GRIEG, OP. 46, NO. 3 28 

BACKS 29 

LAST THURSDAY 31 

THE OFFICE CONFRERE ........ 33 

THE LONG TERMER 34 

BLIND 36 

A MAGAZINE PUBLISHING OFFICE 

I STOCKTON, THE OWNER 37 

II IlIARTIN, THE BUSINESS MANAGER ... 38 

III FARTHINGDON, THE EDITOR 39 

IV HERTS, THE ASSISTANT EDITOR .... 40 
V VARICK, THE ADVERTISING MANAGER . . 41 

VI HUTCHINS, THE ASSISTANT MANAGER . . 42 

VII RIDGELY, THE STAFF ARTIST 43 

VIII SAMPSON, THE AD. WRITER 44 

IX CARDOGAN, THE STATISTICIAN .... 45 

X HILL, THE SUPPLIES CLERK 47 

XI RIGGS, THE ORDER CLERK 48 

FLOWERS 50 

FACES 51 

THE MILL 53 

LAVENDER 55 

CHANGELINGS 57 

A RESUME OF LADIES 

PROLOG 58 

I CELIA 59 

[xv] 



CONTENTS 



II MARIAN 

III AGNES . 

IV JEANNETTE 
V MIMI . 

VI ELISE . 

VII VIRGINIA 

VIII MARGARET 

IX BEATRICE 

X OLGA . 

XI MAUDE 
EPILOG 



PART TWO: MADISON SQUARE 



FOURTH AVENUE IN APRIL . 
SUMMER IN FOURTH AVENUE 

SPEAKERS 

IN MADISON SQUARE . 

DERELICTS 

6 P. M. IN MADISON SQUARE . 

MIKE . 

IN AN AVENUE PRINT-SHOP 
I l' AMOUR MORT . 
II ZAUBERLAND 



PART THREE: UNDER SKIES 



DEATH OF NIGHT . 
SUMMER SHOWER , 
THE DESERTED GARDEN . 
SPRING IN A WOOD 
NATATORIAL RITHMS 

I DIVING . . . . 
II THE CRAWL . 
ALLA BURLA . , . . 
PALATE-STUDY IN GREY . 
TWILIGHT IN TOWN . 
NIGHT IN THE WOODLAND 
NIGHT MAGIC .... 

[xvij 



PAGE 

60 
61 
62 
63 
64 
65 
67 
68 
69 
71 
73 



77 
79 
80 
82 
83 
85 
86 

88 
89 



93 
94 
96 
97 

98 
99 
100 
101 
103 
105 
107 



CONTENTS 



PART FOUR: TWO IN THE MIST 

PAGE 

NASCENSE Ill 

INCIPIT VITA NUOVA 113 

ALLEGRO 115 

SOMETIMES 117 

THE PLATONIST 118 

MERCHANDISE 119 

IN MEDIA NOCHE 120 

AT DUSK 122 

PARTOUT 123 

NOVEMBER 124 

INSULATION 126 

TO R. H. B 128 

EXALTATION 130 

FOR YOU 132 

SHORT EXILE 134 

CERTAIN WORDS 136 

YESTERDAY AND TODAY 137 

TO A LISTENER 140 

MARIONETTES 142 

IN THE DARK GATE 144 

RAIN 145 

THREE OF US 146 

DESPAIR 147 

BONDAGE . .• 148 

VERLASSEN 149 

A QUESTION 150 

THANKS 151 

AT THE END 152 

PART FIVE: REGIMENTALS 

SEPTEMBER 1914 155 

NOEL . . . . 156 

CONSCRIPTION 157 

H. D. PLAYS AU PLAGE BY ARENSKY 159 

FIELD FLOWERS 160 

[xvii] 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

INTERVAL ............ 162 

ROSA MUNDI 163 

PART SIX: SKETCH BOOK 

THE OLD HOME . . . . . . . . . . 167 

LIFE . . . ... . . . . . . . 168 

REMEMBERING 170 

TO P. O., IN MEMORIAM 171 

GOOD FRIDAY . . . . . . . . . . . 172 

IN GREY TIMES .......... 173 

MONUMENTS 175 

FIFTH SYMPHONY, BEETHOVEN . . , . . . 176 

MOTHER 178 

HILL SLOPES ..... 179 

ON HEARING DEBUSSY's APRES-MIDI D'UN FAUNE . 180 

EASTWARD HO! 183 

GATES OF HORN 185 

FOR THE OPENING OF A MUSIC HALL . . . .186 

ANSWERS 187 

QUEST . 188 

THE JAPANESE CHILD TO THE TREE 189 

STARS 190 

THE DIFFERENCE 191 

SONG FROM THE YUCATANESE 192 



[xviii] 



PART ONE: CITY TIDES 



PART ONE : CITY TIDES 

THE TICKET-SELLER 

ALL day the crowds go up and down by me 
And slip their dirty coins across the glass, 
And mutter, "Two," or "Three." 
I see their hands — just hands — and then they pass. 

I tear long strips of green, and sort the change, 

And stack bright metal columns on the board; 

Seldom the face that comes within my range 

Amid the horde. 

I watch the hands ; I do not lift my eyes. 

But fix them on the grasping fingers ... so. 

Once I beheld the soft white hand of Love, 
A hand all made for lips, made to be kissed, 
And glancing thru the wicket up above, 
I saw — a grey-robed sister, floating by in a shroud- 
like mist. 

They take the small green slips and then 
They go, a motley mass of unknown men. 
Here mothers come, and maids, and pass again ; 

[21] 



CITY TIDES 



THE TICKET-SELLER (Contimied). 

Here murderers, perhaps, upon whose hands 

The recent blood invisible still lingers, 

And here a labourer, fresh from foreign lands, 

Gripping a spade . . . but with an artist's fingers ! 



[22] 



CITY T I D E S 



"COMMON" 

THEY used to call him "common" 
In the office where we worked. 
They were all smug and sleek, and wore nice neck- 
ties — 
He wore neck-ties too, but his were always a little — 
Well, hors de la mode. 
But I liked him. 

He used to come to my desk and hang over me 
With a longing in his eyes, 
As if I were something he would like to be. 
Yet I wasn't any one in particular — 
I wasn't even "common." 

And he used to help himself to my cigarettes — 
Every day three or four, sometimes as many as ten. 
But on pay-day he bought cigarettes himself. 
And he used to come to my desk then, and empty half 

the pack out on my blotter, 
And leave them for me. 

By and by they found out he had served a few months 
Somewhere, where many "common" people serve — 

[23] 



CITY TIDES 



"COMMON" {ContiTmed), 

And a few of the better ones, who are not careful 

enough. 
So they "had to let him go.'^ 
Yet it seemed to me they might have kept him. 
He was just "common" enough to break the deadly 

monotony 
Of nice neck-ties. 

Now nobody dumps cigarettes on my blotter. 



[24] 



CITY TIDES 



WASTE 

I KNOW a girl who lives on the West Side, 
In a seven-room and elevator, thank you, flat! 

She sleeps till eleven every day, 

And then she puts on a wide-skirted gown 

(She weighs one hundred and sixty) 

And boots that lace up the back. 

And goes out and airs her dog in the Park. 

In the afternoon she goes to the movies. 

And cries over the poor heroine. 

In the evening she goes out under the moon. 

In a taxicab, and watches a performance of the 
"Happytown Girls." 

And then, after a salad in a stuffy and close cabaret- 
place, 

She goes home to bed. 

Every day she does this. 

And because I write free verse, 

And manage to sell only enough to keep me fed, 

She thinks my life is wasted! 

[25] 



CITY TIDES 



MUSETTA 

SHE said to me once 
When we sat in the smoke and the phantasy 
Of dusk: 

"Sometimes I go along the street 
Where the lights are so bright they hurt my heart 
And I am restless and uneasy . . . deep down. 
And many young men pass me, 
Ruddy-cheeked, clean-eyed young men, 
And they glance curiously, often longingly, into my 

eyes, 
Sending arrows of wishfulness to me; 
And I know that they want me^ — 
I do not care for how long. 
But I know they would be fair and kind to me 
In the mellow sweetness of their desire. 
Yet I must not return their glances, 
Tho my arms are secretly stretched towards them, 
And all the emptiness of me calls wistfully for them. 
Their arms and their lips ... 
I hasten on : I must not see them. 

For I am staying 
[26] 



CITY TIDES 



MUSETTA (ContiTHied). 

For one who may come to me with the love men call 
Svith honour,' 

And yet he does not come. 

The one I know sees me only with cold eyes. 

And a strange deaf soul that shall never hear me 

speak. 
Yet I wait 
And shun the rest 

For what perhaps I shall never have. 
And sometimes I wonder if I do right 
To save the gold of me for one who has the key 
But leaves it to hang rusty on the ring, 
When I might have love 
And all the fire of youth and joy in stranger arms." 

And I too wondered if she did right. 



[27] 



CITY TIDES 



GRIEG . . . OPUS 46, NO. 3 
ASE'S DEATH 

THEY were playing a purple dirge, 
Sobbing, sweeping, 
Delicately stabbing with saccharine knives 
Deep into human souls. 
Thru the music the grey wind swayed over stones and 

the sparse grass, 
And all the sky was grey. 

Like the wail of disillusioned love. 

Seeing the end when it thought there would be no end, 

The cadence slipped and glided. 

Some of those who listened heard . . . 
Faces were drawn, and dry lips were pressed tight, 
Till the last note was twisted in the wound, 
And it was over. 

Then a woman stirred ; 
Her fevered fan rested a moment . . . 
And she turned a red face to her neighbour. 
"It's kind of monotonous, that tune," 
She said. 
[28] 



CITY TIDES 



BACKS 

FOR years I have come every evening 
And pottered around in this ateher • 
Helping with things, 

And doing a Httle work myself, now and then. 
I don't make much progress, 
But I care little, 
For I am old, and easily tired. 

And the curious bend of spine and lump on my back 
Keep me from getting a good job. 
So I help around here, call "time" for the model, 
And thumb at a bit of work myself 
In a corner, alone. 

And every time I shape broad shoulder-blades 
With swelling muscles, rippling under firm flesh. 
And sweep my wrinkled thumbs down the swift curve 
Of an athlete's arched back 
Stilled into clay ... 

I wonder if it is so bad to have a curious hump 
Between one's shoulders, 
After all, 

[29] 



CITY TIDES 



BACKS {Contirmed). 

When you can realise so keenly 

The beauty of another's build, 

I shouldn't wonder if that was why 

I am quite contented here, pottering about. 

Enjoying vicariously 

What I can never have myself. 



[30] 



CITY TIDES 



LAST THURSDAY 

I CAME to the place which was home to me 
And I found her gone . . . 
And this was the note, lying like a blade of white steel 
On the table : 

"It is not that I love you less 

But that I loved you too — too much. 

As if I saw in you a rare old vase, 

Greek-formed, and graven with fair dancing forms. 

Yet withal . . . still clay. 

I loved you, enshrined you in all the golden glow 

Of love-flames ; 

Decked you with flowers. 

Laid my lips to you as I were touching a sacred 

thing — 
Forgetting you were still ... all clay. 
And time and time I dared not feel 
What I had feared — 

That there were times when I did not suffice, 
When I gave all, for little. 
But that were not so hard, 
Until to-day 

[81] 



CITY TIDES 



LAST THURSDAY {Continued). 

One of our friends said lightly : 

'Your devotion is a rare thing; 

I wonder why you lavish it on hi/m! 

Altho he loves you, of course, more than it might 

seem.' 
So . . . oh, try to understand! Good-bye." 

And I, standing there dumb, 
With my heart's life ebbing from me, 
Wondered why I had not armoured her with love 
Against the well-meant stabbings of '*our friends." 



[32] 



CITY TIDES 



THE OFFICE CONFRERE 

I LAID a printed card upon his desk, 
Printed with a poem, the cry of some lonely heart 
Who had spun his longing and his tears into brave, 

bald words 
And sold them for gold 
(Small gold at that), 
Because it is not beautiful to starve. 

He gazed long and silent at it. 

Drinking in the strophes, 

Its metric sobs, the short sighs and poignant despair. 

"Ah, he is moved," I thought. 

And I shook hands with myself to think 

That I could have found aught to thrill him. 

Then he turned to me. 

There was a glow of discontent in his eyes. 

"I never cared much for that Cheltenham type; do 

you.'"' 
He said. 



[33] 



CITY TIDES 



THE LONG TERMER 

AFLAT grey wall, 
Maddening in its flatness, 
Pushes itself up before my eyes. 
Flat floors . . . flat roof, 
And in the flat window, flat bars. 
There are no dimensions to anything 
As I sit here — 

And I feel as if my mind should writhe and curl 
Under all this leaden flatness. 

Day and day. 

And a dead night in between — 

Flat footsteps down the corridor, 

And somewhere stale water drips 

Flatly and hopelessly into a sink. 

This is my life, and this shall be my life 

For twenty long grey years. 

On my knees lies a flat book 
Which they let me have from the Library, 
And just to keep myself from screaming 
[34] 



CITY TIDES 



THE LONG TERMER (Continued). 

I pore over it, worming my way thru its flat pages, 

As a blinded mole gropes slowly thru dark soil. 

It is the Universal Dictionary, 
And I am searching out errors in it. 
I have located eight hundred and twelve 
In the last five years ! 



[35] 



CITY TIDES 



BLIND 

TRAVELLING home from work at sunset. 
Into the maze that men call Brooklyn, 
I cross a bridge midway 'twixt sky and sea. 
But I never behold the sky, 
Nor the water in green folds far below me. 
I never see the sun on gilded domes, 
Nor ivory towers, nor spires all hung with gems 
From the sun's red crucible. 
I never see the still green shadows shake 
Broad arrows deep into the heated rifts 
Of streets. 

I have no time for that . , , 
Nor soul for seeing. . . . 

I always have to read the evening paper, 

And learn if stocks have risen, 

Or if, perchance. 

The ball-team's won another game. 



[36] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE 
{A Gallery of Self -port raits) 



STOCKTON, THE OWNER 

MY mind is a golden flower in a tight steel box, 
Wired and bound fast, that the sun may 

never enter. 
There are days when it puts forth a bloom, 
But the wires close in and it is straightway choked, 
And I am saved from smiling. 
Day long and night long I toil 
To build up a great work, that my name may be 

sounded 
And that the gold of power may rattle in my pockets. 
I toil and struggle in the long twilight of thought, 
And I wrinkle my soul under the burden of projects 
As I wrinkle my brow. 

And I never shall come to the end of my struggle 
Because I have set no end to it. 
There is nothing else in Life for me, 

[37] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE (Continued). 

Nothing else is worth the trouble — 

But I shall have glory, and glory ; 

And the silly yellow flowers that spring from my soul, 

And that flood other men's land where they might be 

plowing, 
Will continue to be choked out by iron wires, 
And I shall be saved from smiling. 

II 

MARTIN, THE BUSINESS MANAGER 

I have earned some of the fun I know 

And I am glad to have it. 

For years I worked, as a boy, trying hard 

To do all I knew to get ahead and retire. 

Nowadays I am what they call successful. 

I come and work at the desk every day; 

Usually I arrive early. 

But don't give me credit for that, because at my age 

and habits it's easier to keep on coming early 

than to be late. 
I lunch well every day, and some days I quit early 

and go to the ball game. 
It's really the way to live. 
I have not shut other things from my life, 
[38] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE (Continued). 

I have brought the things in and bent them to my 
pleasure. 

I have seen good in all men ; I have never refused to 
listen, 

And to some I appear to learn much. 

For I have discovered that if one appears to learn, 
one will learn, as they say, something to his ad- 
vantage. 

I have had a good deal of life. 

But I have never sold myself for it, 

So that now it is my slave, not my master. 



Ill 

FARTHINGDON, THE EDITOR 

Ah, my dear boy, you should see me here. 
Working every day just as if I were a hard-headed 

business man. 
But I manage to keep an artistic atmosphere about 

me 
All the time. 

I don't know how I'd get along without it. 
It keeps me from becoming too sordid. 
For after all, business — all work, is sordid. 

[39] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE (Contimied), 

It's a horrible necessary evil which we must do our 

best with. 
But outside of work I get much out of life ; 
There is variety and interest, not to say thrill, 
To town life, with just enough work 
To leaven it. 
The hours are not bad, tho of course I don't keep 

them anyway, 
And I have plenty of time for luncheon 
At the best hotels. 

It is really not quite half bad, you know, 
Dear boy> 
After all. 

IV 

HERTS, THE ASSISTANT EDITOR 

It's all in knowing how to work, you know. 
I have a thousand ways to get mine done 
So it will please. 

I often talk to Farthingdon and say, 
"Now here's a great idea," and then I tell him. 
And he always agrees with me; 
He knows so little about ideas. 
That is the way to get your ideas over. 
[40] 



CITY T IDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE (Continued). 

I work very hard, in spurts, 

So hard that some one is sure to say, 

"Boy, you're killing yourself. Let up a bit." 

And then I make up for it by taking my time in other 
hours. 

But they don't know that. So they say I'm a valu- 
able man. 

It is the only way to get along — 

Just to know how to work. 



VARICK, THE ADVERTISING MANAGER 

"Bully for you, old top," I say in my genial tones ; 

Life is so very genial for me. 

I am sparkling and gay to all men, it's well to jolly 
them; 

They like you for it, and they will help you out some- 
time on the strength of it. 

I am what they call enthusiastic — 

I bubble over with enthusiasm for a plan. 

My interest is infectious ; that's personality ! 

I have a very strong personality; I make men fall 
naturally into step with me. 

I believe in laughter, lots of it. 

[41] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE (Contiwued). 

I believe in geniality and "Good stuff!" shouted out, 

And slapping of shoulders, and- — ah, have you seen 

my smile? 
My best persuasive smile? 
My smile is almost as good as my personality. 
Almost as valuable. (I often think of those old days 
In Chicago, before I learned how to smile.) 
Now it all gets me a great deal, all one could want in 

Life ; 
I have everything in Life^ — everything. 
Which shows one must be genial. 

VI 

HUTCHINS, THE ASSISTANT MANAGER 

"I am very busy, but I can give you a moment or 

two—" 
I love to bite out these words to a caller, 
For it impresses him, 
And that is everything. 
Once, you see, I went to business college, 
And there I learned that a business man was always 

busy, 
And always hurried. 
And so I try always to hurry, 

[42] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE (Continued). 
You've got to be busy if you would get ahead. 
In business, as I once very cleverly told a young cub 
Whom I rather liked, 
You must give everybody the impression 
That you are working night and day 
For the company; 

That you are thinking and dreaming of business — 
They must be led to believe it. 
I sometimes feel that this is bluffing, 
And sometimes that perhaps some one suspects it, 
But I speed on ; they shall never be quite sure of it. 
And ahead of me is ever the president's desk, 
And you can't get that without making the right im- 
pression. 

VII 

RIDGELY, THE STAFF ARTIST 

I think it is not worth while to bend all day 

Over a sunless desk, in a sunless room. 

And trifle with scarlet and blue and green 

In sticky tubes. 

When there is scarlet and blue and green to blow to 

the winds 
Outside in the fields. 

[43] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE (Cordirmed). 

It is better to sit on a hill 

And watch sheep, or to bend in the sun hoeing melons, 

Than to bend here painting them on silly cardboard 

For some one else. 

It is not worth while to be a cog in a machine, 

To grind out power for some other man, 

No better man than myself. 

Watching on the hillside, I may wear my own wool, 

Or hoeing, eat my own melons. 

But here another takes all the melons. 

And I must eat what he sees fit to give me. 

I cannot have the flowers of the world out there 

Because I must paint flowers all day upon cardboard, 

So that he may have the flowers out there. 

It is not worth while — or rather. 

If I hadn't four mouths to feed, 

I should think it was not worth while. 

VIII 

SAMPSON, THE ADVERTISEMENT WRITER 

I am an old man, forty years in the business, 
And I know advertising copy from A to Z. 
I could give the Boss lessons in English, if he wished, 
Because I have been forty years in the business. 
[44] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE (Continued). 

All the rules the young cubs learn are wrong; 

They do not fit the case. 

For forty years I have gone my own gait, 

Made my own traditions, 

And now I know the rules are all wrong. 

Appeal is everything . . . the appearance of the 

card, bosh ! 
Not one cares for the appearance. 
I work slowly, because after forty years, tho I am 

full of many ideas, 
They don't come out readily. 

Yet if I do take a long time, it is very thoroly done. 
It may not please you, but it is thoro. 
Because I know how it should be done, and do it. 
I have been forty years at this, 
And I know. 

IX 

CARDOGAN, THE STATISTICIAN 

Juggling figures all day is a dog's life. 

Yet it is rather pleasant sometimes to be precise 

And to forget that there are other things which might 

interest 
Beside the slide-rule. 

[45] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE (Contirmed), 

Often I think, 

"What good does it do you to know Hegel and 
Rossetti 

If all day you think only of two plus two?" 

And often into my mind come little memories of April 
days, 

Of green slopes, and the thin lisp of a stream, 

And me reclining, with Plato bound in covers be- 
side me, and the history of the immortal soul 
seems more important to me than our circula- 
tion in the provinces ; 

Until I rouse myself, 

And go back to figures, for I hear his Highness ap- 
proaching, 

I hear the Boss. 

He is carping and irascible, and gets on my nerves. 

Yet I do have to laugh secretly and subtly to myself 

When he looks at me, and says in his metallic rasp, 

"Mr. Cardogan, you're too slow a worker ; 

Your mind needs training !" 



[46] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE {Contirmed), 



HILL, THE SUPPLIES CLERK 

Rules are rules, and we must all obey them. 

I am a believer in regulations, for everything on 

earth 
Goes by rules. 

Often I'd like to stretch a point to ease matters, 
Or to simplify an operation, or save time. 
But then it always occurs to me that it is more fun 
To enforce the rules and see 'em fume. 
I am a worshipper of regulations. 
They are my life. 

Rules do not in themselves appeal to me, 
Save where they conflict with efficiency and speed; 
Then I dote upon them. 
I give out supplies to the office, 
And I must have a slip, duly filled out and endorsed, 

for all. 
True, I always basket the slips after they are filled, 
But that is neither here nor there. 
Without the proper method, just so, 
The slip is void, and I may gleefully 

[47] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE (Contirmed). 

Withhold the supphes. 

I am entrusted with this function by the Boss ; 

I have full charge of all the materials ! 

This is not so dull a job as you might think; 

I may always liven it up by being 

A vigorous enforcer of routine. 



XI 

RIGGS, THE ORDER CLERK 

When I had to quit school to work 

I made up my mind not to work with my hands. 

So I got me a good suit — I've a pretty good build, 

you know — 
And I landed this job on my looks. 
And I work with my head here, 

Matching paper, and inks, ordering cuts and borders, 
And it's all interesting, and I learn a lot. 
I haven't got much education, but I go to night- 
school right along. 
And some day I will try at Columbia 
For a course or two in English, for I think 
One ought to know their own language, isn't it so.^^ 
It's pretty good working like this, 
[48] 



CITY TIDES 



A MAGAZINE-PUBLISHING OFFICE (Contintied). 
Better than busting trunks or running trolleys for 

a living. 
I've done both. And I get two weeks' vacation, 
When I go up to the country and loaf with the rich. 
Why, 'most all of them have autos. 
It takes most of what I've saved up, 
But it's worth it, for some of the people are very 

stylish, 
The kind anybody'd be glad to go with, 
And some time I'm going to go with them. 
Because I'm foxy enough to work with my head. 



[49] 



CITY TIDES 



FLOWERS 

TEMPESTS of blossoms in darkling streets, 
Roses — the squares are full of roses 
And orchids, shaken loose by the dusk. 
Hang from every wall. 

And yet, near by, within very sight of all these, 
Within hearing of men. 
Tucked away in his garret, 
A poet is weaving garlands 
Of paper . . . posies ! 



[50] 



CITY TIDES 



FACES 

EVERY morning on my way to work 
I see faces, 

Myriads of faces ; God, what faces ! 

Blotched, dead-eyed and gaunt faces — 

Faces with fear in them (they have seen something 
of which they dare not think), 

Faces, young women's faces, with joy, and desire, 
and pain, and love in them — 

And they have in them that which I cannot under- 
stand ; 

I can only look and marvel at those faces. 

And young men's faces, some vacant with the empti- 
ness of dull wit, 
Some sinister with thoughts that I do not express — 
And I see some faces dreamily reviewing the yester- 
night. 
Some keenly alert at the world about them, 
Some gazing questioningly into to-morrow. 

Yes, and some are drawn faces, haunted faces — 
They tell of scourging, and repressed senses. 
And forbidden impulses, bridled. Futile faces ! 

[51] 



CITY TIDES 



FACES (Continued). 

And old men's faces, some sodden, some sage; 
And old women's faces, books of human history, 
Bearing the tales of a thousand battles. 

The old faces are like poems. 

And every hollow, every wrinkle the strophe of a 
psalm. 

All about me faces — 

Faces mingled in the woven chant of a world-chorus, 

Faces like multitudinous spirit-wraiths abroad — 

Oh, faces, who has not read your legend? 
And yet, who dares to read your legend? 



[52] 



CITY TIDES 



THE MILL 

A MORNINGS when the sun laughs on the city 
towers. 
Standing tip-toe, warming from the eastern hills, 
I go with the hordes of men into the maw 
Of the mill. 

Into its black mouth with the living stream 
Of souls. 

And there am I ground, 
Soul and body wracked. 
And squeezed dry. 

And the divine essence called labour 
Is taken from me. 
All day am I ground, and shredded, and trampled 

out. 
Worked over, and pressed out . . . pressed to the 

last small grain, 
That the miller may have his share. 
(His share is the best of us, the best of the grist of 

men.) 

And at even 

We are sent forth, the chafF . . . 

[53] 



CITY TIDES 



THE MILL {Continued). 

The shells of the souls that went in of the morning. 

All hollow are we, and empty; lifeless, inert are we, 

And we go home 

To the darkness, the mothering night, and perhaps 

The white breast of the moon-flame 

(Which we never see . . .) 

Tired ... 

Too tired to rest. 

Too tired to see the glory of it all, 

Too empty and broken the shell, to hold the white 

jewel of the moon 
In its hollow cup. 

So . . . we go promptly to sleep, from nothing into 

nothing, 
To make ready for the yawning mill of the morrow 
And the miller who must have his share. 
His share! 



[54] 



CITY TIDES 



LAVENDER 

THE twilight hangs like smoke in the streets, 
Pearly, veiling all the stretches in illusion. 
And the new-lit lamps are the glow of hearts 
That grope unseeing and unseen. 

At the corner a lean girl offers me lavender, 
Offers me Youth and Romance to hold in my palm, 
Closed — thus. 

She gives dreams to the world, 

She who knows naught of dreams — 

Gives gardens, and waters, and the young shy moon 

Hung in the laurels; 

Gives the smoke of eve enmeshed in the willows, 

And the stream complaining sotto voce. 

Gives the lavender, scattering purple fragrance 

With Sheba's hand. 

And the subtle reawakening of dreams. 

These, all these she gives me, this lean, young girl — 
(A shawl is over her head and her eyes look into the 
darkness). 

[55] 



CITY TIDES 



LAVENDER (ContiTmed). 

What does she know of dreams? 

How more happy is she than I who have dreamed, 

And may dream no more? 



[56] 



CITY T I ]:> E S 



CHANGELINGS 

ONCE I saw a flowering plant, 
Breaking into a blaze of scarlet bloom, 
Clutched in the thin arms of a tenement child 
On its way to a dark, lone room. 
Bereft of sun — 
On its way to a few weeks of service. 

I saw a gladdened child 

And days when a visible song 

Should hang in the desolate grey room — 

And then a handful of withered twigs 

On a dust heap. 

Service . . . but, oh, the plant! 

Once I saw a youth 

In his college halls. 

Ruddy and straight, 

Smiling and clean, and lusty of thews. 

Then he told me he had landed a job 
In the Bethlehem Steel Mills- 
Service . . . but oh, the youth ! 

[57] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES 
PROLOG 

LIFE is a chain of women," 
Somebody said once, somewhere in something 

or other, 
And when we have given them that tribute 
We have given them much. 
And answered, perhaps, 
The Eternal Question. 
They come like the dawn, women, 
Silent and sure, on silver feet. 
Into a dark life, 
And they drive away Night, and the desert-sense of 

loneliness 
And then . . . just when you think they are fairest 
A great unexpected sun rises from somewhere, 
And they fade . . . 
And leave you alone again. 
With only the glory of their memory. 

Oh, for a resume of ladies, 
A tabulation of the dreams we have known, 
A catalog of memories, 
Memories of mornings ! 
[58] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES {Continued). 



CELIA 

CELIA was tall and slim, 
Slender and young as a reed 
That leaps from the thicketed rim 
Of a pool. 

Her eyes burned like the thoughts of a vision seen 
In some past incarnation. 

She loved the forest ; she herself was the flower of it, 
Fresh as pale woodlilies fraught with dew-glister. 

And we loved, et ego in Arcadia viwi — 

Until — well, she came to the city, 

Where I lived, and moved in the melange of men, 

And she hated it all, and she withered, 

And one day she sent me a note — "I have gone — 

Back. I cannot live in the city you love; 

Your life is too full — or too empty ; 

You are living a symphony. 

And I — I am humming a folk-song !" 

And I never saw her again. 

[59] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES {Continmd). 



II 



MARIAN 

Once I taught Latin to a millionaire's son 

For a season, and at his country place 

I met Marian, his kinswoman. 

We used to go canoeing on the river, in my ofF- 

hours — 
And the night hung turquoise over the pallid stream 
Splashed and brocaded with the sheen of an August 

moon. 

And the last night (she was going to Lenox in the 
morning) , 

She told me how empty her life was — 

And how hard it was for a debutante to learn to live. 

And coming home — 

(It was late, and Rogers had left only the low hall- 
lamp alight) 

I looked deep into her eyes. 

And she swayed — a little — towards me. 

Then she — 
[60] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES (Contirmed). 

Broke into an incoherent "Good night," and ran up 

the stairs, 
And left me alone in the darkness, with a thousand 

dreams. 

I saw her six months after at the Horse Show, 
And she looked unseeing when I raised my hat. 
(A new one it was too, the latest model, 
For I like to be well dressed) 

And she looked quite thru me, to some silly horses 
capering in the arena ! 

Ill 

AGNES 

We met on a liner, in the midst of fog, 

Bumped into one another on the hurricane deck; 

And she laughed 

When the scarf she wore blew out 

Across my mouth. 

And I, apologising, untangled it. 

For four days, on the deep, 
We loved — 

And we built strange castles under the stars, 

[61] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES (Contimied). 

Far up in the bow, with the surge foaming just below 

and beside us, 
And the faint spray blowing about us. 
And there we made bubbles of dreams — 
Until — once 

I asked her casually if she came from Chicago. 
And the bubble 
Went out! 

She glanced at her feet — 
And then — 

She told me I had no sense of humour, 
And she hated sl man who thought he was funny ! 

IV 

JEANNETTE 

Down in Washington Square 

She chanced to sit at my table in a cafe, 

And I, being "broad-minded," offered her a cigarette. 

Which she took with a smile, and we chatted. 

Later, somehow, I told her I liked her, 
And for two weeks we loved, 
Dwelt in a land where men sojourn 
Perhaps only once in a lifetime. 
[62] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES {Continued). 

And one night — 

As she sat crossed-legged on her striped divan 

And squinted at the low lamp thru a highball, 

She told me she'd been thinking 

How wonderful it would be to have a eugenic child, 

As a famous dancer had done. 

And I— I blushed! 

So she sent me out into the depressing night 

Of the Square, 

For she had no place in her life for a mid- Victorian. 



MIMI 

There was Mimi — with whom I used to go 

To the Metropolitan. 

We went "Dutch," and we stood thru the "Ring," 

And I used to find her hand in the darkness. 

And more lyrics than Shelley ever wrote passed thru 

my fingers into hers. 
We loved the crash of Titanic music, 
And I rather think I loved her singing better 
Than Brunhilde's. 

[63] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES (Contirmed). 

But just when I began to forget I had no money, 

And was planning a lot of things 

For "us," rather than for "me," 

She told me she was engaged to Harold Swift-Ogden, 

The packer's son — ^who hated music, but was very 
rich and had angeled the Chicago Opera Com- 
pany, 

Where she was going to get a hearing. 

And she said she was telling me first of all, 
Because I had always been so good a pal. 
Pal— bah! 

VI 

ELISE 

Elise had the heart of creation — 

It held all things, and all things thrived in it. 

And she had long, slow fingers that wound about my 

life 
Until I was moved to sing her many songs. 
And spun out all the foolish plans a fellow has 
And most unwisely tells to women. 

And one day on a bus top — 

When I'd been telling her of plodding over a manu- 
script, 
[64] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES (Continued). 

And hoped and dreamed it would be the Great Ameri- 
can Novel 

Which some publisher would buy 

(And I felt secretly that she should be very proud 
of me, 

As a coming genius — ), 

She said — 

"Tell me again that story of how you wept on hear- 
ing Butterfly. 

I want to use it in Chapter Ten 

Of 'Sentimental Studies.' 

You know Scribners have taken it ; 

I got an advance checque this morning.' 



5> 



Lord — I have always hated women who are after 
literary material ! 

VII 

VIRGINIA 

Eyes are mostly just eyes, but hers were as rare and 
unreal 

As j ade from the mystic glades of the Flowery King- 
dom 

Where the gaunt waterfowls stalk in the marshes, 

[65] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES (Contitmed). 

And the yellow Yang-tse meanders endlessly thru the 

scented dusk. 
Her eyes I saw in a painting, and I knew the artist, 
And he promised a meeting, 
For he swore the picture was a true image of her 

beauty. 

So I went home, and for days I lived in that veiled 

sheen 
From her eyes, and their mystery shrouded me close. 
It wrapped me like the magic cloak of a forgotten 

age. 
Dropped into my life by the wraith of some long dead 

queen. 
I wrote sonnets and songs. 

And lambent rhapsodies, as pellucid as her gaze, 
And at last, at the studio, 
I met her. 

She was a deaf mute. 



[66]' 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES (Continued), 



VIII 

MARGARET 

And there was Margaret — 

Her I caUed "Peg." 

Peggie was sturdy and short. 

Hardy, and built like a boy, 

With hair that she flung to the breeze in the wood- 
land ; 

Gave free to the winds, as we scuffled the leaves 

By the Autumn-gilded road. 

I liked Peg — well, pretty much, 

But we never talked of it, that way. 

Often we j oked about it, but I found her such a good 
pal 

That it seemed to be silly. 

Until — once I recounted a meeting 

In Washington Square, 

With a little blonde cabaret singer. 

And the next day — 

Peg wrote me a line saying, as she always said things. 

Crisply and to the point, without gush, 

[67] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES (Contirmed), 
That I was a bum friend, 
And she was tired of me ! 

IX 

BEATRICE 

At a dance I met her, 

And in the midst of a fox-trot, I who had been read- 
ing Oscar Wilde 

Told her there were two sorts of women : 

The pretty ones who were empty above. 

And the brainy ones who were frumps. 

And she hated me — 

Because she knew she was comely — and brilliant; 

And she dared not ask me which of the two I had 
failed to see. 

And she planned for my scalp — "just to show me." 

I forget what became of her — 

It was after everybody had begun to notice how 

much we were together; 
And she gave me the "Grand Sidetrack," 
Ditched me good and proper — "just to show me," 
But everybody — funny how they make mistakes — 
Said it was my fault, that I'd trifled with her — 
[68] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES (Continued). 
And that I lied to protect myself, 
When I only told them the truth. 



OLGA 

Olga was one of the strangest of all. 

I never got to any conclusion about her way of think- 
ing; 

Her mind hung great and voluminous before one, 

Dimly lighted, 

Like a lofty, graceful stage curtain. 

And I knew there was a paroxysmic activity behind 
it— 

But the curtain never rose ; 

The play never began. 

I met her as you meet many people ; 

She had a friend who introduced us. 

And that very night I took her to dance at "Vicar's.'* 

And all that evening, as we floated about the floor 

together, 
She, melted in my arms, 

I, moving in a Nirvana of melody and motion, 

[69] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES (Contirmed). 

Half-conscious, knew only that there was a song 

somewhere 
Which we might sing together. 

And all the time she looked at me with questioning 

eyes, 
And back of the curtain the scenery was shifted 
And stage-hands ran briskly, noiselessly to and fro. 

And on the front door-step, under a half-hearted 

moon 
That burned a pale and flabby port-hole in the sky, 
She said : "Good-bye, lad, this is the end of it. 
You will not see me again; 
I am not what you think I am — 
You do not even know my name — 
Why, I am—" 

And bending so low that the warm wisps of her hair 
Clung to my eye-lids. 

She whispered a name that stopped my heart a beat. 
The name of the greatest dancer in the world I 



[70] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES (Contiwued). 

XI 

MAUDE 

Great hands stole a little of the Amazon world 

Out of the veiled recesses of Age, 

And Maude came to live in the flat next door. 

At first we used to pass in the hall, 

And nod, 

As neighbours do. 

And then we got to going to the movies, 

Or to a little cheap cafe near the "L" station, 

Where we'd sit hours over a glass of beer 

And talk of Life — and other things. 

And once I sat there, telling of those things 

Wliich one keeps hidden, often, even from oneself, 

And she bent over the table, in quiet sympathy. 

And listened. 

When I was quite finished, 

A strange, cadaverous smile spread over her face. 

She laid her hand on my arm, 

And fingered a ring I wore. 

Then her voice came thin and metallic to me — 

[71] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES (Continued), 
"I know what you mean — 
When shall we be married?" 

You understand now 

Why love fled like a rainbow 

Before the dusk. 



[72] 



CITY TIDES 



A RESUME OF LADIES {Continued) 



EPILOG 

And so they went — 

Came, lingered, aye, and passed. 

Some in a day, some saw many seasons thru, 

But all faded like mist in the marshes 

When the bold sun, rising, transfixes them with a 

relentless ray. 
I might write here: "The End." 
But I tell you there is no end. 
"Life is a chain of women," 
And as we live, so do we weld the chain, 
And with the fading nights come dawns, 
And with the dawning, days. 

Spring succeeds snows, and e'er the night has passed 
And darkness dies, languishing on the breast of hills 
Deep in the bleeding West, 
A new whiteness pales upon the Eastern gate, 
And men smile once more, thru hardly-fallen tears. 
To greet the dawn. 



[73] 



PART TWO: MADISON SQUARE 



CITY TIDES 



PART TWO: MADISON SQUARE 
FOURTH AVENUE IN APRIL 

DOWN in the street there's a hurdy-gurdy call- 
ings 
And Italy is singing in its cadences athrill — 

The orange-carts are blooming like a garden of 
Sorrento 

In the maze of tangled traffic that is climbing Mur- 
ray HiU. 

In the shadows of a doorway with her basket full of 

pencils 
Winter sits unnoticed, with her wares upon her knees ; 
And the errand-girl astrolling by the flower-leiden 

windows 
Never sees the lonely phantom humming, crooning 

in the breeze. 

The Spring is in Fourth Avenue — it's gilding all the 

towers 
To gold and crocus-purple with the radiance of the 

morn; 

[77] 



CITY TIDES 



FOURTH AVENUE IN APRIL {Continued). 
And jostling men are smiling, a/nd one was heard to 
mhistle! 

The woman selling pencils sits unnoticed, and for- 
lorn. 



[78] 



CITY TIDES 



SUMMER IN FOURTH AVENUE 

IN the four walls of the office I am in the coun- 
try— 
I am in the thicket, or on the hill-side 
Where the rushes quiver. 
The electric fan chirring nearby is the locust in the 

willow, 
The myriad wood-sounds falling upon young ears. 

The typewriters all about, woodpeckers rapping with 

noisy beaks, 
And in the hall the cry of the lift-boy 
Is Daphnis calling to Damon in the rye-sea. 

A telephone bell at my elbow tinkles like a bird-song, 
All around is Arcadia, the mallowed slopes of Ida, 
For it is summer in Fourth Avenue ; 

And some one, with a quaint turn of thought, 
Has left a dozen daisies on my table. 



[79] 



CITY TIDES 



SPEAKERS 

A MAN stands on a soap box in Madison Square 
Speaking earnestly, and gesticulating now and 

then 
With the sincerity of one whose soul is master of a 

magic tongue. 
His face, thin and sun-browned, 
Is afire with that mysterious magnetism 
We call personality, 
As he tells an anecdote 
To carry his point. 

And at the end, uplifting his square hands 
With stubby fingers, toil-marked and twisted. 
He urges his hearers to action . . . and reform. 
And as he leaves, 
A fat-jowled man at the curb 
Elbows a companion, chuckling, 
"I wonder what he's paid for shooting that bull!" 

And T, listening too, wonder 
If once upon a mount, somewhere in Galilee, 
When a Man spoke earnestly 
[80] 



CITY TIDES 



SPEAKERS (Continued). 

With a play of soul in his eyes, 

Some of the city wiseacres did not say: 

"What does he get for swinging all that junk 

About being meek, and inheriting the earth?" 



[81] 



CITY TIDES 



IN MADISON SQUARE 

THERE is a fountain in Madison Square, 
That throbs and struggles and hurtles towards 
heaven, 
Rising in glamour and glory 
With a shout, — and a rush, 
Bursting with zeal to reach the stars. 
Leaping white and crystalline in the moonlight. 
Whole-hearted and youthful it vaults 
Abruptly, 
Aloft ... 

And hangs a moment in delicious airiness 
Beneath the night. Then ... 
It falls impotent, with a petty shower, 
Spattering back with a murmur of futility, 
And strangled ambitions. 
It lies helpless a moment. 
Lifeless, and still. . . . 

But that does not prevent it from throbbing 
And springing again with a rush and a shout. 

There are men in Madison Square. . . . 

Have I told you enough? 
[82] 



CITY TIDES 



DERELICTS 
{^Written after the Jutland seorfight) 

CROSSING Madison Square after rainfall, 
I saw the leaves sweet-scented and green, 
And the flowers, drenched with heaven's tenderness. 
Yearning upward and smiling at the returning sun. 

And in the midst of it all, wet and bedraggled on a 

soaked bench, 
I saw a human thing huddled, 
A derelict. 

An old woman whose sorry bonnet 
Wobbled, unsteady, over one red and bleary eye ; 
And she rolled her blank jaws aimlessly from side to 

side 
As she stared unseeing into the Nature-world. 

And I thought of where the sea gleamed 

Green and glistening. 

Where, the day before, there had been a great battle; 

I saw the waters smiling to the sun returning after 

[83] 



CITY TIDES 



DERELICTS (Continued). 

With all the thoughtless delight of a contented child ; 

And in the midst of this, too, 

A derelict— 

An iron-clad shattered, its heart gone, its beauty 

shot away. ... 
The grave, too, of hopes and nurtured plans 
And the dreams of vision-laden Youth. 



[84] 



CITY TIDES 



6 P.M. IN MADISON SQUARE 

THE thin blue night with turquoise wings 
Floats down upon the shadowed square, 
Like memories of forgotten things. 
The darkness in the tree-top swings, 
Caught in the leaf-land there. 

Dim as the souls of men long dead, 
Lights glimmer thru the travelled street. 
And lost amid the dusk o'erhead 
They mingle in a sickly red 
And with the stars in heaven meet. 



[85] 



CITY TIDES 



MIKE 

THE other night I was sitting in the Park 
And a thin, nervous-looking guy came along, 
Just like you came along to-night. 
And he give me a cigar, and he asked me to tell him 
How I came to be here. 
But I was feeling kind of glum over some rotten beer 

I'd had 
At Finnerty's, 

And I just sat there and shook my head, 
And didn't say nothing. 
So he went away. 

And to-day I seen in a copy of the World 

That some bloke left on a bench 

A kind of pome about me — 

And he said in it how it happened 

When he met me. 

But then he had to go and write a whole lot more, 
A lot of stuff I didn't get at all. 
About throbbing hearts, and a place called Cosmos, 
And he said I'd probably 
[86] 



CITY T IDES 



MIKE {Continued). 

"Looked into the eyes of Life and been slain" 
Like a guy named Action, or something like that. 
And he said I'd been in love perhaps, and been 
chucked. 

Lord, imagine him making all that up ! 
As if anything like that coulda happened to me. 
Why, nothing never happened to me . . . ever. 
Folks with sense don't expect it to, nowadays. 



[87] 



CITY TIDES 



IN AN AVENUE PRINT-SHOP 



UAMOUR MORT 
(A lithograph hy Sterner^ 

SO she is dead. . . » 
And her young, pallid form 
Lies like a white flower buried by snowflakes. 
It is silent, and still 

With all its beauty frozen into lasting alabaster; 
Caught (to stay forever) in the wonderment of its 

magic perfection. 
Slim, young . . . and white, 
Cold as the snow, and as frail. 

Ah, she was tender as the young Spring bloom 
Bending on its frail stem with the too great burden 

of its loveliness. 
And a grey gust came 

Tearing the thin petals away, and scattering them; 
[88] 



CITY TIDES 



IN AN AVENUE PRINT-SHOP (Continued), 
But on. the grass, even far-sprinkled, 
Thej are beautiful. 

And so she is dead, 

Dead in white bloom ; 

Quiet and still as the wan anemone 

And broken. . . . 

And in all her death-silence. 

Too beautiful 

For tears. 

n 

ZAUBERLAND 

(A landscape hy En/rique Serra.) 

THE stupid and solicitous day hangs in the tree- 
crests. 
Loth to depart. 

Like a blind and beneficent husband — 
And splashes its hot glory over the high stones 
At the water-side ; 
Stupid, too well-disposed day. 
Strewing its unwelcome largesse of kindness upon the 

poplars 
And listless willows. 

[89] 



CITY TIDES 



IN AN AVENUE PRINT-SHOP (Continued). 
And the pool, his bride, lies passive, apathetic, 
Hiding her impatience and her longing for his going. 

But her still voice, rising in her heart, cries : 
"Go, all my desire is for my lover, the night. 
The slim, cool youth of darkness, whose arms are 

silver. 
And whose lips are heavy with mystic dreams. 
I long for the night, who slips silently to my bosom. 
Yet he cannot come till you are gone. 
And I hate your beaming and your gifts, 
For even now I hear him rustling secretly 
In the sedges. 
Stealing softly up towards me!'* 



[90] 



PART THREE: UNDER SKIES 



CITY TIDES 



PART THREE : UNDER SKIES 

DEATH OF NIGHT 

THE long white fangs of dawn are fixed in the 
throat of night, 
And cold and death-pallid day, 
Fitfully gusting with zeal. 
Shakes the thin night m its jaws, 
As a beast shakes a dying thing. 

And out of her milky-blue throat 
The blood springs forth 
Dyeing all the heavens ; 
And to the westward 

The frightened moon, livid with weeping for her per- 
ishing love, 
Cowers low in the hills. 
And every leaf and grass-tuft gleams 
Dew-spattered with her fallen tears. 



[93] 



CITY TIDES 



SUMMER SHOWER 

THIN curtains of summer rain hang in the vales 
'Twixt city towers. 
Blowing before the wind, they billow and bloat 
Like a filled sail; 
They sway and swing — 

And their little turned-up edges scurry and float 
In lambent folds 
Like a silken arras 
Drawn trailing up the streets. 

There are plumes of steam floating from the tower- 
tops, 
Fluttering amid the rain 
Like white butterflies, just a little beaten 
By a flurry of August rain-drops. 

And over the pellucid heavens 
Jealously conscientious in their care 
Are great loose curtains drawn — 
Shutting out the light with fuU, grey-purple folds, 
Save where, along the horizon, 
A vein of iridescent green sky, 
[94] 



C I T Y TIDES 



SUMMER SHOWER (Continued). 
New-washed and clean, shivers tenderly, 
Turning up the veil-edges with tenuous fingers, 
Curiously peeping at the silver shimmer 
Of the rain-curtains 
Filling and blowing. 



[95] 



CITY TIDES 



THE DESERTED GARDEN 

MY heart is only sadness when I pass 
With lagging footsteps down the silent ways 
Of this deserted garden, and I gaze 
Upon these lonely blossoms. Ah, the glass 
Of Life's bright wine is brimming, but alas. 
The banqueter no more his elbow lays 
Upon the festive couch. The roses raise 
Their lips incarnadine above the grass; 
The violets burn purple by the path, 
And golden poppies tremble in the wind 
As if they waited for the wandering one. 
The brown birds flutter in the basin-bath, 
The dial casts a slender shade behind. 
But all is silence— in the summer sun. 



[96] 



CITY T I 1) K S 



SPRING IN A WOOD 

SPRING ! but last Autumn's leaves beneath my 
feet 
Whisper of others who have walked that way 
And in the purple of the October day 
Have scuffled them as I do now. Then sweet 
The breeze sang, and the waters hurried fleet 
To sing new fields an endless roundelay. 
Now it is spring — April, the dam of May, 
Standing reluctant. Yet can I feel the beat 
Of the pulsating renascence of Life and Youth, 
And freshened boughs, and warm, upspringing grass, 
And waters loosened from the winter-cold — 
And still the song of reawakened truth 
Is urging on, that tho the snow-days pass 
And Nature grows young, yet men — and I, grow old. 



[97] 



CITY TIDES 



NATATORIAL RITHMS 
{Winner of the Collier Prize, 1916) 



DIVING 

THE grown sun sleeps on thick and idle water, 
Water calm — and still, and smoky green, 
With little reflections of leaves splattering down 
upon it. 

You stand at the edge, poised. 

Still-breathing and tip-toe, 

Silent an instant — all seems to stand silent about. . . . 



Then a leap — 
The parabola of flight — ^ 
And a crash 

Into deep and green and waving water 
Ever widening, ever welling in broad and stately 
. circles towards the shore. 

[98] 



CITY TIDES 



NATATORIAL RITHMS (Continued). 

II 

THE CRAWL 

And then you come slowly up, 
Thru worlds of water. . . . 

An impulse of arm and thigh, 

With a thrust ahead; 

A thrust — 

Light-topping wave and bubble ; 

Deep you delve with arm, 

And are shot ahead. 

Ahead 

With a sharp, short kick 

Of feet. 

The long glide, sleek thru the green wash, 

Lifting the dripping arm 

(The drops fleck from it 

And patter brittly in the wake). 

While all the sunlight glows red-gold 

On shoulders gleaming 

And on drab hair . . . matted and flat. 

[99] 



CITY TIDES 



ALLA BURLA 

/O and away . . . Bacchus and Pan! ^ 

Grapes . . . and the singing of leaves on the 

breeze ... 
Soft pelting of rain, the kiss of the haze . . . 
Grapes . . . and the cast-off bondage of man ... 
lol the grain, the wisps of the oat! 
The gold of the garland torn from the trees ! 
The shower of berries as red as the dawn, 
The cantering riotry down the damp ways! 
The breathless young nymph . . . /o , . . and the 

goat, 
The rustle of reeds giving way to the fawn ! 
Woodnotes and piping afar in the vale. 
Lost melodies lingering light on the hills. 
The scamper of kid and the whisper of rills. 
The curve of the chase off and over the trail. 
lo Bacche, and Pan . . . the press and the jar . . . 
And the laughter of revellers fainter afar ! 



[100] 



CITY TIDES 



PALATE-STUDY IN GREY 

ALL over the hollow vale 
A dead sky broods and glowers, 
And back at its fringes a struggling glow 
Of sun-ray limns a kind of sorry blush 
Across the clouds, 
As if they were ashamed at fading summer. 

And down the long slopes the grey wind glides 

Like a swallow sailing down deserted plains, 

Sweeping in silence on her curving flight, 

While trees scarce move; 

And the dead leaves keep falling . . . 

And falling. 

Along the crooked wall they are piled in drifts — 
Bloodless and russet, loud-voiced and brisk with 

cheer, 
Cackling like beldames over the bier of Youth, 
Rustling about Beauty's bier. 

And as the full-throated requiem from a far-off 
cathedral choir 

[101] 



CITY TIDES 



PALATE-STUDY IN GREY (Continued). 
A murmur rises from the pines — 
A soft wail of wind brooding and mourning — 
Wind disconsolate, empty of joy, 
Sobbing in suppressed accents afar in the tree- 
tops. . . . 
And the dead leaves keep falling . » . 
And falling. 



[102] 



CITY TIDES 



TWILIGHT IN TOWN 

THE relentless fingers of Night are at the throat 
of dusk; 
The deep sky bleeds, and in the narrow streets 
Lights flicker and glint like tired souls taking flight, 
To rest and silence after the fevered course of Day. 

From the roof, as I were a muezzin of the East 

I watch the slow and fateful fingers of the dark 

Insinuated into the rifted streets. 

Reaching deep into back courts and narrow places, 

Moving in silence, driving out the day. 

And in the West the low hills beyond the stream 

Lie darkling, glittering with new-sprinkled lights 

Like daisies flecking the deep-shaded Idan slopes. 

And I think the Hudson lovelier than the Nile 
And more deep-stained with purple, 
The purple blood of dying day. ... 
And the hills, at noon so gaunt and bare, 
Are violet-crowned, and fairer than the Acropolis 
Where Romance sat throned for a thousand years. 

[103] 



CITY TIDES 



TWILIGHT IN TOWN {Contimied). 

And I think there is no beauty, no romance 

Like to the magic, of the great New World; 

For I am gazing with eyes of love, 

And in my heart sings the old song Anacreon sang. 

Translated into a newer, yet more potent, idiom. 



[104] 



CITY TIDES 



NIGHT IN THE WOODLAND 

1 LOOKED into the stream and beheld the heavens. 
The stars all swimming in the green depths 

Like little silver fish. 

And the round moon lay on the silken breast of the 
pool 

Like a breastplate on a Valkyrie's bosom ; 

The trees bent low, and all around were night- 
sounds. ... 

They lulled out all turbulency, they stole away the 
world 

From me, stretched on the brown leaves. 

They were crackling, mirthful leaves. 

Scented with earth-scent, and damp with earth-tears. 

I lay in the glow of the fire, 

And you were beside me, 

Speaking in a low, so carefully balanced voice 

That your tones melted into the night-sounds, 

And rustled with the leaves, 

And sang with the water. 

I do not know what you said. . . . 
I only know we had all merged into one with the 
world, 

[105] 



CITY TIDES 



NIGHT IN THE WOODLAND (Contimied). 

You and the fire-glow and the earth-smell, 

And the leaves and the moon pale with night-tears. 

And the stars swimming in the water. 

And I, looking deep-ejed into the stream. 



[106] 



CITY TIDES 



NIGHT MAGIC 

IT is well to have walked alone in the moonlight, 
In the lambent sheen of the white night-mystery, 
To linger, lips parted, searching with great eyes 
In the elusive riddle of night-stillness ; 

To pause mid the Unseen, listening to the low 
Crisp bicker of crickets, and the soft stealthy wind 
Caught in the tree-tops netted against the moon; 

To drink the cool balm of grasses in the night-dew 
And the haunting scent of young mint in the marshes, 
(The freshness and sweetness of night-slumber) 
Coming like frail dead memories ; 

To hear 
The undertone of dead limbs rustling ; the faint 
Message of the redolent tulip-tree blossoms 
Gently, tenderly alluring to slumber; 

The taste of the mystical night-breath, the murmur 
Of somnolent nature — ah, to have known it 
Is to have gazed in the eyes of Peace, 

[107] 



CITY TIDES 



NIGHT MAGIC (Continued). 

To have laid cold lips to the lips of YoutK, 

To have seen Rest and Contentment etemaL 

Ah, it is well to have walked in the moonlight, 
Alone in the sheen of the white night-mystery ! 



[108] 



PART FOUR: TWO IN THE MIST 



CITY TIDES 



PART FOUR: TWO IN THE MIST 

NASCENCE 

SOMETIMES ... it is like the uncertain April 
days, 
When Spring is struggling, spasmodically and fit- 

fully, 
To break from the womb of Winter — 
And now and then faint spears of green appear, 
And then a blast of grey-cold withers them. 

Sometimes I light within, with morning glow, 
And it seems as if the Spring 
Were struggling for life within me. 
Then comes a chill and cloudy day — 
And straightway all is gloom and cold. 
And blasted remnants of what might have been field- 
flowers. 

How difficult and how fraught with dolour 
Is birth of any sort ! 

And that new soul, that new life springing into being 
Comes by pain, and pangs, aye, and perhaps tears, 

[111] 



CITY TIDES 



NASCENCE (Contirmed). 

Into its heritage. 

And so I change, swerve and change again, 

And all the time, slowly. 

The over-soul is blundering into life ! 



[112] 



CITY TIDES 



''INCIPIT VITA NUOVA"' 

IT seemed 
That the whole world rose about me like grim cliffs 
Propping the sky, pulling stars from their night- 
webs, 
And crushing them to their own bleak brows. 
I stood alone, it seemed, in the depths of an abyss, 
Beholding only the lamps of my promise 
Sparkling aloft . . . shot far across the deep ex- 
panse of night. 

Withered trees gibbered about me, 

Rank air hung like a vampire at my throat, 

And as I groped, 

Raw stones, blood-stained by many travelling feet, 

Rattled hollowly at each step. 

And then you sang. . , • 

You sang, and the clifF-tops 
Flung out great robes of tender green. 
Dawn broke eagerly across the warming sky; 

[113] 



CITY TIDES 



"INCIPIT VITA NUOVA" (Contirmed). 
From the south came breaths of fresh life and joys, 
The stones lay forgotten, for it v/as fair to move 
Like a smooth stream across, along the path 
Towards the goal. 

Something new-washed and clean 

Became my soul. 

And then in Alighieri's words 

I found my heart-song 

And was born anew. 



[114] 



CITY TIDES 



ALLEGRO 

1AM so happy that I cannot sing — 
I am so happy, I can barely sigh — 
Down like a flood it rolls, 
Wave upon wave, 

And then follows the ever interchanging of weather 
Like all seasons in one — 
The blind, dead glare of torrid sun 
That dries and bakes ; 
Then the rush of torrents — 
All unseen — but I felt them tears ! 
Washing away the dun self 

And turning all to freshness and April-green; 
The white moonlight of dreams, 
Faint and fast-fading, but potent as a spell. 

And thru them all 

I calling, calling — 

Sending a still voice down the naked vale, 

And then struck to silence when an answer falls — 

It is no echo — 
It is another soul, 

[115] 



CITY TIDES 



ALLEGRO {Contitmed). 

Another voice that rides the sleeping night, 

And I, long groping, I so oft disheartened. 

Greet, unbelieving, the onward leap of joy 

Swift as the miasmic whirlwind of all weathers, 

Rushing like Spring into my arid veins. 

For somewhere in the mist, I have found a soul, 

Like to mine own, and I stand silent 

In awe. 

I am so happy that I cannot sing ! 
I am so happy that I dare not speak ! 



[116]' 



CITY TIDES 



SOMETIMES 

SOMETIMES when I sit very close to you — 
Quiet, 
And the smoke of my cigarette curls up about you, 
I think you are not real at all. 
I think you are a fancy, come to me out of the 

dream-haze, 
A vision of one whom I should love, if you but lived. 
Do you really live? 
Or is it all a mirage — a smoke-dream of a night, 

Of the vision-laden and illusive evening? 

* * * * 

I do not speak much when I am with you — 

For the sweetest words are those men leave unsaid. 

* * * * 

When I depart from you 

I do not leave you behind me. 

But I carry you into the inmost halls of my soul ; 

Every contour of your face is graven on my spirit 

And lives with me. 

I cannot really leave you. 

When I depart from you. 

[117] 



CITY TIDES 



THE PLATONIST 

THERE have been days when my heart was 
wrenched for the love of you, 
When I have been seized in huge, invisible hands 
And cast at your feet. . . . 
And I drew back in dismay, and cursed myself for a 

weakling 
Because I could not drown the desire in my soul. 

Once I bent very near you, 

And your smooth flesh was warm under my touch, 

And hungry-eyed I followed the curve of your lips, 

And the deep dark shades of your eyes 

And your young brown hair. . . . 

And the Hand was upon me again! 

I was torn and wrenched, and I battled, 

And at length I conquered, and came forth from the 

combat 
In laurels. 
. . . But I bear long scars on my soul from the 

struggle ! 

[118] 



CITY TIDES 



MERCHANDISE 

1GAVE you jewels because I loved you, 
And I laid gold at your feet. 
You did not know that I loved you, 
For you thought that I meant it when I said we were 

friends. 
You thought my gold the gift of friendship. 

And afterward, when my blood ran high 

And I hungered after you, and bit my lips 

Wroth with them, because they longed for your red 

mouth ; 
When I burned in white fire for you, 
And I saw you almost willing to take me, 
Then I remembered ... 
I knew it was impossible. 

For I feared you would think that I had tried to buy 

Your glorious love with baubles. 

So I could not ask aught of you. 

Ah, child, instead of buying you with my gold, 

I unwittingly sold you, sold what I longed for, 

And unknowingly lost you! 

[119] , 



CITY TIDES 



IN MEDIA NOCHE 

DARK and empty the street, 
With straggling souls that pass hither and 

thither 
Each . . . each alone, 

Without even a dream to strain to a solitary spirit. 
But oh, not I — for silently we stand. 
You and I silent, yet breathing infinities of song 
Thru the commingling of eyes, and the dumb pressure 

of young hands. 
We are singing all the songs of all the world ! 
Yet no one hears, only you and I. 

And in the shadows where we stand 
Hang multitudes of phantasies too tenuous for words 
And far too tender. 
Close, close we stand 
And closer yet slip 

As silence urges with all the impelling oratory of 
heart. 

Close to you, O mine, I am drawing closer; 
Your arms enfold, there is no haven for me else ; 
[120] 



CITY TIDES 



IN MEDIA NOCHE (Contimied). 

And then the inarticulate wrench of parting 

When all the world swa3^s unnoticed in the balance — 

Then are your lips laid to mine, 

Warm and persuasive, 

And all the wonderment and glory of you 

Surges towards me. 

All Life is complete, wrapt close in the pressure of 

jou, 
As I am wrapped in you, 
And you in me; 
And for a single instant there is nothing else in all 

the world 
But you 

And the young lips of you 
And your amber eyes lost in the endless recesses of 

mine own. 

And then ... 

Ah, what a fall from heaven to leave you! 

Yet what a deal of heaven in my soul 

As I go down the wet and shimmering street, 

Down the deserted thorofare, alone. 

. . . But I only seem to be alone! 



[121] 



CITY TIDES 



AT DUSK 
{Stecchetti, Postwrrm XXVII) 

MIXED with the evening, dusky, tender, still, 
Came fragrant vapours from the field new- 
ploughed 
And we together walked across the hill 
And heard the nightingale implore the cloud. 
Your eyes, uplifted to the star-shot sky, 
Sent in its glance an unvoiced prayer on high, 
And I, who knew what you had never spoken, 
Adored you for your silence, still unbroken. 



[122] 



CITY TIDES 



PARTOUT 

YOUR golden being binds me round 
As does a ring upon my hand — 
I cannot escape it. 

All ways I turn I am held by the great bond of you. 
In the early morning I see you in the dawn, 
In the white haze floating up from the salt-marshes, 
In the cold wet scent of ocean-mystery 
Walking amid the grey hills. 
At noon I catch you in the blue depths 
Of the burnished sky, all gleaming with the sun ; 
And you are in the grottoes too, you sing in the 

cascades. 
And at night . . . 

You rise in the white transcendent glory of the moon, 
You are diffused about me, 

You bathe all my body and soul in your pale nimbus ; 
You are round about me, beside me, above me, 
I cannot escape. ... 
And even at the end. 
You fold grey winds about me as I sleep! 

[128] 



CITY TIDES 



NOVEMBER 

HOW grey the day is, and how dolorous ! 
Gaunt trees outside the windows tremble un- 
easily 

In the invisible wind . . . 

As peevish sicklings twist without rest 

In a comfortless chair. 

A distant train bursts thru the sodden morning- 
stupor ; 

Thoughtless of men's ears shrills a long warning, 

And with a wail is gone. 

The warm room is not felt; 

My hands are cold, and grey silence weighs upon me 

Leadenly. 

I am all indecision ; I walk and turn 

Along the room, restless, aimless and unthinking, 

Unknowing how to put a soul to rest. 

Somewhere, away across the hills, 

You are wrestling with your choice, 

Me ... or the things so many small folk strive for, 

Yet do not call themselves quite happy in attaining. 

Which wiU you choose ? 

I would that you be happy, yet, and yet . . . 
[124] 



CITY TIDES 



NOVEMBER (Contirmed). 

How I fear to lose you! 

For losing you, it shall be more than if I lost just 

you, 
For I should lose myself, and all of mine, in you . . . 
And all that both of us should ever be. 



i[l25] 



CITY TIDES 



INSULATION 

SOMETIMES I wonder if it is really you, 
When I spin these thin messages to you 
Out across a thinner space; 
Just as I wonder if it is really I 
Who talk to you, 
Or if it is some new thing which I should wish to be. 

I talk and talk 

And I seem to be twisting little balls of words 

And casting them off into a dark abyss. 

And whether you get them, whether you really know, 

I never learn. 

It is as if one prayed 

And felt the prayer mounting 

Like tenuous threads of smoke into the heavens. 

And never once knew whether the dear God hears, 

Or hearing, heeds. 

Yet, having prayed, they tell me there comes a sense 
Of having put behind for once 
The self we do not love. 
And of bringing out another better one, 
[126] 



CITY TIDES 



INSULATION (Continued). 

Into the rare light of day. 

So, when I have talked to you, 

And seen your face half-lighted by my thought, 

Perhaps it is enough to know 

That the light of you has fallen, 

Just for once, 

Upon a self that otherwise would have stayed 

In darkness long, unapproached, and all unseen. 



[127] 



CITY TIDES 



TO R. H. B. 

YOU are like the unknowable Spring days, 
Sun-breaking, all warmth and faint breezes 
For a while — 
And then so chill and grey, that songs woven out of 

Spring 
Fall lifeless and metallic on your listless air. 

It is as if a day dawns clear and lovely, 

With all the smiling charm of cloudless skies. 

And great green banks waving sun-swept in the 

winds. . . . 
Then I weave songs, and, gazing into your eyes. 
As I would gaze into the endless depths of a morning 

sky, 
I wonder why all days are not so fair as this. 

Then comes a day when all the world stands still, 
Grey clouds hang low, and gusts of cutting wind 
Rasp at my cheeks, 
Bitingly. 

The flowers droop, the roses grow brown, 
And flutter, listless, away from their speckling stems, 
[128] 



CITY TIDES 



TO R. H. B. (Contiimed). 

And only a soiled glow is painted across the sky 

Of your little world. 

Then all my songs go flying, 

And I stand, as a tree which has sung in some past 

June, 
But mute now. . . . 
Weathering as best it can 
The incomprehensible passing of things. 



[129] 



CITY TIDES 



EXALTATION 

UNDER the glow and warmth of your round 
eyes 
I reached and grew, and towered aloft until 
The stars hung all like jewels at my cheeks, 
Brushing me with their silver dust, 
And in my ears 

Sang the gigantic symphony of the spheres, 
And all I knew was light. ... 
I stood but knee-deep in the world. 
With yet my feet set fast amid the dust 
Of men. 



Then when I left you, 

And when the morning broke 

Clouded and haze-wrapt, as it grieved 

For lost illusions, then amid the bald. 

Uncompromising light I asked, and with dismay- 

"Was I so much a fool 

So foolishly to grow, growing but to return again 

To small stature? 

After the moment of magic, again to yearn 

[130] 



CITY TIDES 



EXALTATION (Contirmed). 

For ages long, after the lost ethereal spaces . . .?" 

Then suddenly broke the answer on my brain, 

For, having seen those places, 

I found I was not as I had been yesterday. 



[131] 



CITY TIDES 



FOR YOU 

LONELY, the soul of me cries out for you 
From the dim-slumberous silences of my soli- 
tary night ; 

I twist and toss 

And, sleepless, I strive to reach in blind awkward- 
ness 

My arms to you. 

Back in my heart is a burning memory 

Barbed and stabbing, 

Of days when you were warm and dear to me, 

And close upon my breast stretched your young 
hands 

To take my face between them, and . . • 

But the memory is bitter! 

I can only turn and toss again 

Stirring, endlessly yearning for you, 

Wondering if you may ever come again. 

Or if in truth you are really gone ! 

Dry, listless lips of mine repeat again and again 

The question which has no answer, 

Are you really . . . 

Gone? 

[132] 



CITY TIDES 



FOR YOU (Continued). 

And the repeated echo, unbelievingly, 

"Gone?" 

O Christ, break the silence. 

And tell me if I have truly lost you ! 



[133] 



CITY TIDES 



BRIEF EXILE 

i 

DISILLUSIONED and sorry, I left you . . . 
Determined to forget you, 
And I went into far places and mingled with men; 
But from a window I passed 
Your round, amber eyes looked out at me, 
Sombre and deep, as I had beheld them once in the 

old life. 
Yet the house I saw bore a sign, "To Let,'* 
And as I peered into the squares of glass 
I found that they were black, and bare. 

So I went into the lonely places. 

Where there were meads, deep-shaded, and the 

pensive trickle 
Of a stream. ... 

And in the sun-browned grass I saw your hair. 
And from under the reeds came your low voice 
Questioningly, 
Asking why I had gone. 
And a lone cloud, moving slowly across behind the 

hiUs, 
Went softly, thoughtfully, as you were wont to walk. 
[134] 



CITY TIDE S 

BRIEF EXILE {Contirmed). 

So I saw I could not leave you, 

And I came back. . . . 

But boldly and silently, 

To let the disillusionment and sorrow eat at my soul 

By your side! 



[135] 



CITY TIDES 



CERTAIN WORDS 

CERTAIN words- 
Inept, unshapen, formless 
And devoid of man's art-laden touch — 
Are dropped for me, as we walk. 
Dropped aimlessly, bj you in your striving to give 

something; 
Like uncut gems quarried by a clumsy hand 
Rude and elemental. 
Yet capable of being seen in forms of transcendent 

beauty. 

Men have cut coronet-gems of just such stones, 
Or they have fashioned from them poison-vials. 

'Tis all in the hand of the cutter; 

The potentialities are always there, latent, 

And so ... I do not dare carve them as I would 

have them carved. 
Lest I uncover some hitherto unseen flaw, 
And spoil all, 
By an unwise choice of cutting-patterns. 

[136] 



CITY TIDES 



YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 



LAST night, in the midst of many, 
When there were palms, and roses, and a 
lighted dome above us 
And bright silver, and shining tables everywhere, 
You asked me in an undertone 
To give you back the token you gave me 
Months and months ago. 
And you said "you hoped I'd understand." 

And I said slowly that I did, 
And I gave it to you — 

And then somewhere the music turned into the meas- 
ured beat 
Of a song, "Poor Butterfly." 

And I recalled the first token you gave to me, 
Plucked from the shoulder of your gown, 
A tinselled butterfly, a bit of colour that I hid away. 
As a sentimental man does, those things. 

[137] 



CITY TIDES 



YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY {Continued). 
And I gave you the other token almost without re- 
gret 
Because I knew 

I need never give you the butterfly. 
That should stay always . . , 
A reminder of Spring and Summer. . . , 
A poor solitary bit of colour, the end of— 
What shall we call it? — "an experience." 
And the music banged away like a wayfarer 
Knocking at an empty house, 
Sighing again, and again — - 
Poor Butterfly. . . . 
Yes — I understood. 



II 



Last night when old dreams and close-fostered hopes 

Crumbled under the hard touch of reality, 

I thought I felt a great cavern yawn about me, 

That without the romance of you 

There was little, nought worth while. 

And all the roses, and tinsel, and music 

Seemed to waken only deep regrets. 

But to-day . . . 

The sun dawns strong and white, 
[138] 



CITY TIDES 



YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY (Contirmed). 

And it is clear and cold ... all winter. 

And a stray wind laughs thru the streets, 

And Madison Square, below my windows, is a sym- 
phony 

In black and white. 

A cold, intellectual symphony, 

Like the page of a book. 

And romance? There is no place for romance 
there — 

What has intellect to do with romance.'* 

And tokens . . . why, child, 

A butterfly would look silly in that frozen square 

Out there ! 



[139] 



CITY TIDES 



TO A LISTENER 

THRU darkness I cried to you, 
But you never heard. 
I watched you there, with the longing eating at my 

heart of hearts, 
And at last I called to you ; 
I touched the keys and there came music, 
And my fingers sang for you, as you stood by 
(I thought perhaps to listen) ; 
Sang all my soul and body to you, 
Poured out the long yearning and desire 
To you, unhearing. 

Ah, that song ! Weeping, hungry sorrow. 
Loneliness, repression, denied love and dreams, 
All in one song (yet no one else could have heard it, 
None but you) I poured it towards you. 

It came like a great wave, slowly up the long beach 

at your feet 
(I was at your feet too), but you never heard. 
You listened, but your thought and soul were far 

away; 

[140] 



CITY TIDES 



TO A LISTENER (Contimied). 

I do not know what you were thinking, 

But I was singing under an empty window. 

Only the aspect of you stood there with me — * 

Ah, the bitterness, the maddening futiHty — 

All my song falling on deaf ears — 

My yearning song, my heart squeezed and coined 

into a few notes, 
But you never heard ! 



[141] 



CITY TIDES 



MARIONETTES 

1H0LD you at arms' length . . . long, long 
arms 
Reaching across bleak lands and a misty span of 

time, 
For you are far from me, and perhaps . . . 
Perhaps you never shall be near. 
Arms' length, thinking of many things, we are. 
(I am thinking of the past, while you dream on 
Of what things I do not know.) 

All that there is is the Past; 

There is not even any Now for us, 

And mayhap there shall be nothing to-morrow. 

Oh, why did we not live, why did we wait and plan. 
Surrendering so, so much for some vague dream to 

come. 
Waiting, waiting for the Future, 
When we were to live? 

And now, tricked, we stand dumb, at arms' length. 
For there is no Future, after all. 
We shall not live . . . not gain that which we bought 
[142] 



CITY TIDES 



MARIONETTES (Contimied). 

With nights of emptiness and restless abnegation ; 

There is no Future for us, after all! 

And back of us Life, black, malevolent, 
Laughs hollowly. 

And claps her bony hands with ghastly glee 
At mortals who believed, and believing 
Were cheated of their birthright. Happiness. 



[143] 



CITY TIDES 



IN THE DARK GATE 

CLASP my hand tight — the dark encircles me, 
And all our hope in scattered ruin lies. 
The way is dark, A mist before mine eyes 
Shuts out the light. Oh, it is hard to see! 

Clasp my hand tighter — bend, oh bend, bend low; 

Your eyes are wet— I see them full of tears 

I never merited. Oh, could the years 

Only bring back the days we both loved so! 

My hands are cold. They will not warm again 
Tho yours beat hot with anguish mounting higher. 
Your cheek against my own is like the fire 
Against dead embers, wet with Autumn rain. 

Come close — come close, it seems so long to wait 

Until at length the parting hour slips — - 

Does the fire die down.'^ I — closer — press your 

lips — 
For I am standing in the shadowed gate ! 



[144] 



CITY TIDES 



RAIN 

NIGHT, and the fall of rain, 
And street-lamps bleary thru the deepening 
dusk, 
And the smaller, dimmer lights 
On the pavement, gleaming; 
In the room shadow — and in my heart shadow, 
And outside, the rain. 

Night, and the fall of rain. 

In regular dripping — cold, dismal, desolate rain. 

Darkness without in the world. 

And dark in the depths of my spirit — 

Darkness without hope of light, 

For to-night you left me ! 



[145] 



CITY TIDES 



THREE OF US 

TO-NIGHT, because we were friends, 
You told me 
(And there were tears in your voice 
And a kind of anguish in your very posture as you 

sat) 
That you had loved some one ardently, 
And that that one had not loved you. 
Your heart shook out its petals under my sympathy 
And you wondered how I could understand. 
But I knew it all e'er the first word 
Had floated to me across the deep abyss 
Which separates us. i 

I did know, because . . . 
(But I suppose you never dreamed it) 
Because I loved so once myself, 
And shall love so, 
For I loved you! 



[146] 



CITY TIDES 



DESPAIR 

DARKNESS hangs leaden, stifling, 
Crushing down a pettish impotency. 
Impotency crying monotonously for that which it 

cannot have, 
Hungry, yearning, but powerless to gain. 
Blind impotency beating itself against a window. 
That is closed, and locked — 
(And dark and stifling is the room within) 

An instant, a thin point of light breaks thru, 

An instant — and then it fails 

And the black is heavier than before. 



[147] 



CITY TIDES 



BONDAGE 

THERE is a kind of invisible cord 
That joins my heart to you, 
And somehow it can never wander far 
Nor stay away, sojourning among other things. 
For always you draw it back to you, 
Somehow. . . . 
I don't know just how. 
All I know is that suddenly my thoughts desert the 

fields. 
Or the gardens, or the crushed-up cities where they 

have been lingering 
And come home to you. 

Tho I am far away, and tho men call 

And beckon to me, and invite me, laughing. 

Into the midst of it all you come. 

The thin, small cord, lighter than air, is drawn 

And my thoughts are all for you, 

Returning from their journeys, home . . , 

To the old bondage. 



[148] 



CITY TIDES 



VERLASSEN 

THEY have all gone . . . and I am left, 
Left with a rout of memories and shattered 
dreams. 
Shattered . . . for to-night my love smiled kindly 

to me, 
Yet drew back with an involuntary recoil 
When I bent forward to touch the brown hair. 
And so . . . that is gone . . . too. 

There is a girl next door singing 

"Verlassen, verlassen bin ich" — 

In an endless succession of stanzas. 

Fool, does she not know that when one is abandoned 

One does not sing. 

But remains mute . . . and dead, 

While the world stands still? 



[149] 



CITY TIDES 



A QUESTION 

DID you ever, cherie, stand by a wide pond in 
the wood, 
Where every leaf and branch 
Of the trees overhead 

Could be picked out, mirrored in the oily waters. . . . 
And did you ever pick up a stone 
And toss it out upon the gleaming floor before you, 
Watching it sink deep. 

Sending only its circles widening and rippling to the 
shore ? 

Then you know what it is to fling your love into the 

world. 
And you know that all its rings, 
Widening thru life, are dear . . . 
Even if, by making them. 
Your heart has gone to the depths. 



[150] 



C I T Y T I D 1 : S 



THANKS 

FOR all the murmured words you did not say, 
And all the hours beneath the star-shot blue 
Unspent by us ; and for the gold and gay 
Midsummer noons we never shared . . ., my thanks 
to you. 

Aye, and for all the messages of cheer 
And tenderness unsent, and for the true 
Deep gaze of understanding, that the drear 
And grey beclouded days found not . . . my thanks 
to you. 

For all that might have made our few days rare, 
But which you did not give, my thanks are due; 
For you have made an ending I could bear. 
Which otherwise had rent me, so . . . my thanks to 
you. 



[151] 



CITY TIDES 



AT THE END 

I AM he whom you sold 
For thirty piec^-S of silver — yeaj 
I am he who poured 
The fulness of tears, and the gold 
Of my blood, and my life as a day 
To buy but a single smile 
With my horde. 

I gave you my life, gave it free — 

My life full of sighs, ah, your guile! 

My wakeful nights, and my day 

Of hopes . . . and the dreamings of me. 

But you sold them for glory; you sold 

My life and my love and my pains. 

And now, at the end, you hold 

The silver, blood-stained, in your hand 

And yet do I bend where I stand 

And kiss that hand 

With its stains! 



[152] 



PART FIVE : REGIMENTALS 



CITY TIDES 



PART FIVE: REGIMENTALS 

SEPTEMBER, 1914 

THE vintage days, and all the vintage blood — 
Blood, and the frantic wine of madness, death! 
All nations drunk with it, line upon line, 
Long lines reeling, wild shouts, heated breath — 
Stampeding Bacchic hosts, resistless flood 
Trampling the vintage, maddened by the wine 
Of power and the lust of reeking hands. 
Lust of tearing, rending — blind, panting force — 
Yet shrilling cries of "God" and "Justice done," 
Swarming from the bare and smoking lands 
Drunk with blood and flesh! Is this the course 
Of God's great world to worship His meek Son? 



[155] 



CITY TIDES 



NOEL 

THE white Christ walks abroad to-night 
Amid the glow of rocket fire, 
'Mid guns that thunder in their ire 
And shrieking death, and drunken might. 
Mad hosts unseeing, wrench and rend 
His still white body, as His snows 
Are trampled, and the red blood flows 
In rivers without bank or end. 

Silent along the field He moves 
Against the veil of smoke and flame ; 
Somewhere apart He hears His name 
From trenches laid in slimy grooves. 
And dying men relax and sigh 
The where His garment passes by. 



[156] 



CITY TIDES 



T 



CONSCRIPTION 

O me, facing the draft, these things seem true : 



That there are blacker things than Death, 
Which is, after all, only a tavern whither we all are 

bound, 
Where we put up, and stretch our weary limbs 
For rest and dreaming after toil; 

That there are sweeter things than living, 
For all the heart-dreams of unspoiled youth 
Can never blossom with the fragrance 
And the soft-golden petals 
Which they promised, budding. 
(The best of Day is Dawn. . . . 
The noon-glare is a tawdry blazon after the morn- 
ing smile, 
Shy and virginal across the redolent hills.) 

That there shall be those who mourn, 

As men mourn their departed childhood ; 

Yet come the cryptic words a Man once said. . . . 

"Except ye die, how then shall ye be saved .f^" 

... Or of like portent. 

[157] 



CITY TIDES 



CONSCRIPTION (Contirmed). 

And there comes to few men half so rare a lot 

In living, as in this bold hour 

When man may serve, and save . . . and maybe die ! 



[158] 



CITY TIDES 



H. D. PLAYS ''AU PLAGE'' BY ARENSKY 

THRU the dim hall, floating beneath the rugged 
beams, 
Came your music, the slow rise and fall of tides 
Flung by men's hearts against the sands of sound, 
And under your firm fingers given back to us. 

I heard the beat and sway of measured bass, 

The ripple of counter-currents, and the lowering 

thick airs 
Of the overspanning sky. 
Full of all this, I felt that something quailed 
Within me, thinking how when the great net folds 

about you, 
And you are ranked with many in the battle line, 
The fingers now sturdy on the keys 
Will spread death. . ,' . 
Fingers which have so loved life, 
And given life to us, so unstintingly. 



[159] 



CITY TIDES 



FIELD-FLOWERS 

IF I, who tried to sing so many songs 
Of Life and Love, and trees and long sweet 
nights 
With faulty, muted pipe, 
Go forth to France, and die— 
These things shall come to pass : 

I shall be laid, more base than even when I lived. 

Beneath some dark-stained bank, 

Broken clay in clay. 

And from my lips, earth-turned, daisies shall spring. 

To dance in their youth adown the sun-swept hill, 

Swaying and jubilant in the warm airs, 

Tremulous in the breeze. 

As I so often have pulsated vibrantly 

In the wine-spell of hot-running life. 

And they shall be gathered by some dark hand, 
Blended in garlands, or wound into a nosegay. 
To tell a passion to a lover's eyes ; 
They shall carry songs that I could never sing — 
I who living was mute, dead shall sing 
[160] 



CITY TIDES 



FIELD-FLOWERS (Contiivued). 
And scatter down the world 
Rare songs that I have dreamed — 
Songs to be sung from heart to heart, 
From living age to age. 



[161] 



CITY TIDES 



INTERVAL 

STEPPING out of the light, I saw the stars 
Wet-luminous, white — like lattice-hidden eyes, 
And the frail moon, thin, delicately curved — 
A wan saint's finger up there beckoning. 
Across the pale horizon netted trees 
Flung out their curling leaves to catch the dew. 

"How fair is all the world !" I said within ; 

"How good to live ! What magic from the God !"— 

Then suddenly a shadowed figure came 

Down the grey path, khakied, a soldier-form 

Freed from the camp, smelling of man and horse. . . . 

And I remembered that we were at war ! 



[162] 



CITY TIDES 



ROSA MUNDI 

WHEN snow shall fall and wind shall blow 
And winter daikness bite, 
And hills above and vales below 
Are looming still and white, 
And the long lights of guns shall flaunt 
Their glow upon the night ; 

Then God shall walk the ways alone, 

Shall walk unseen and still, 

And in His holy foot-steps sown. 

Across the gaunt white hill 

Roses shall spring, and at His tread 

The buried dead shall thrill. 

Then war and cannon-hate is sped 

( The roses fill the air ) ; 

Red blood upon the soil out-spread 

Turns roses everywhere; 

And smoke-stained men shall stop to pray 

With the sad Christ standing there. 

[163] 



PART SIX: SKETCH BOOK 



CITY TIDES 



PART SIX: SKETCH BOOK 
THE OLD HOME 



I 



THINK I shall never return again to the home- 



The old-time home where my heart burned so in 
leaving, 
Years — yes, many long years ago. 

I fear I should see the walls that I knew become 
Gnawed by the cold of winter, or the subtle weaving 
Of the woodbine waving red in the Autumn glow. 

The thin young vines that peeped thru the window- 
frame 
Of the room where I was born, perhaps are swaying 
In empty windows there to-day — alone. 

And oh, if I should find it not the same, 
Something within would break ! And so, by staying, 
I may dream of it still, nor know if it is gone. 



[167] 



CITY TIDES 



LIFE 

1 THOUGHT to write a great poem, 
As broad and deep as the sky 
And as universal as the sea; 
About Life. 

And I called Life a moiling maelstrom; 

And a play where men were actors ; 

And I said Life was a symphony, 

Where the pieces played in perfect harmony, 

Every harp and viol in its place, 

And countless horns playing from their own scores. 

With, true, here and there a single feeble flute 

Slightly out of tune. 

I said Life was a meadow, where we all grow as the 

grass grows; 
I said it was a summer tempest, 
Where certain great principles were lightning and 

thunder, 
And deep rolling clouds, 
And men all drops of water, 
Some falling into flowers, some lost in the midst of 

the sea. 

[168] 



CITY TIDES 



LIFE (Contimied). 
I said it was ... 
Then I stopped. 

And I wrote as a last line, one word, 
As many have written before me, 
Bunk! 



[169] 



CITY TIDES 



REMEMBERING 

MINGLING of dancers, music and slippered 
feet, 
Changing, ever changing, melodies falling sweet. 
The clinging touch, the scent and the whispered 

word- 
Its sense uncaught, fragmentary and blurred. 
Nearness, dearness, the closeness and press of you. 
Laughter half-smothered, and eyes full of songs un- 
sung; 
Melody-mad and mystic all — and you and I 

too. . . . 
But oh, dear God — the glory of being young! 



[170] 



CITY TIDES 



TO P. O. 

IN MEMORIAM 

THEY sent me in a little soiled box 
All the stray papers that you, gathering, 
Clipping from here and there, had husbanded 
To read again in the long-looked-for hours 
When you should smile again, less wracked by pain. 

And as I, trembling, fingered all the slips — 
Those pitiful mute bits of your secret mind 
Which you, in passing, left like a trail of steps 
Along a beach — I turned back thru the years, 
Rereading all your mirrored thoughts, and all 
The scenes we knew lived fresh again and sharp 
To my wet eyes ; it was as when one lifts 
The cover from a rose-jar ages old 
And fills To-day with Yesterday's dead dreams I 



[171] 



CITY TIDES 



GOOD FRIDAY 

GOOD Friday, the day of anguish and of fire! 
From the lone vigils under fitful stars 
The group of faithful gather on the hill 
Till dawn shall broider with her silver scars 
The purpled sleeve of night. Low hums the dire 
Portentous murmuring from the rabble, still 
In lingering clusters round Pilatus' porch. 

Then bold in the dome of sky a single beam 
Like a broad streamer leaps. A bloodshot ray 
Flares on the brow of heaven. The red torch 
Of Rome within the gateway chokes its gleam — 
No more a blot of fire upon the night. 
And close at hand a soldier stalks the height, 
Watching three diggers knee-deep in the clay. 



[172] 



CITY TIDES 



IN GREY TIMES 

OH, to be twenty. . . . 
Full of the dreams and pensive wanderings 
Down paths untried, untrammelled. 
Where all of Life like a jewelled and broidered cloak 
Lies at Youth's feet 

To be taken up, and worn with brazen pirouetting, 
Bobbing before mirrors of the soul 
And smiling into the glass 
At the illusion in its depths. 

Then drink we the wine of living 
And dream — dreams that like smoke-haze 
Wreathe about burnished locks 
Hanging, a crown as thin and elusive 
As the dawning sun-rays on a purple mountain- 
billow. 
Soon, ah, too, too soon to fade. 

For all the glory of a summer day 
Is less than the timorous blush of hope 
And half-framed wishes 

That are the divine portion of unknowing Youth. 

[173] 



CITY TIDES 



IN GREY TIMES (Contirmed). 

Oh, to be twenty ... 

Again, 

To change the hard, real dross 

For Araby and Arcadia, 

For the ephemeral visions of Love and Glory 

Whose feet are rooted only in smoke, 

And whose forms are moulded 

Only of water ! 



[174] 



CITY TIDES 



MONUMENTS 

THE daisies that spring from dead men's lips 
And leap to the sun from the moistened clay 
Are the souls of the past, as a memory slips 
Thru the long grey night-mist into day. 

What a man has wrought in the hour of his prime, 
The work that he did, or the song he has sung, 
Fades fast with the onward roll of Time, 
Gives place to the songs and deeds that are young. 

But his body, deep in the damp, dark mould, 

Springs into flower, and in the dawn 

Breaks into daisies, white and gold. 

And shines on the world when his thoughts are gone. 



[175] 



CITY TIDES 



FIFTH SYMPHONY 
BEETHOVEN 

A MOUNTAIN avalanche, enormous and kingly, 
that sweeps from the blackness 

From the footstool of the frowning sky. . . . 

Swirling in a storm of sound, a maelstrom of confu- 
sion. . . . 

Here the pale blue-green of flutes, mystic and noc- 
turnal, 

The bold terra-cotta cry of the horns, 

The barcarolle of viols. 

And the pure fresh shepherd-song woven thru its 
woof. 

It bears down upon my mind as the flood upon my 

body — 
I am caught to its breast, I am swept into its arms, 
Whirled away into chaos. 

My mind is crushed, as my body. . . . 
They lie limp and listless, pale on the cold stones, 
But the soul is liberated and soars aloft. 
[176] 



CITY TIDES 



FIFTH SYMPHONY (Contirmed). 

The new cold air breaks in white upon its softness, 
And something unknown within silently thrills with 
pain. 



[177] 



CITY TIDES 



MOTHER 

MOTHER, when I was young 
And played about your knee- — 
Perhaps from the bed-time tales or the songs you 

sung, 
You seemed so very old, and wise to me» 

Then when I rose to Youth, 

In boyhood's singing whirl. 

You seemed to be changed somehow ; to tell the truth. 

You seemed to be younger, like a dreaming girl. 

Now when I am a man — ^ 
Well-schooled, broad-shouldered, tall, 
Tho you understand as only a mother can, 
Your thoughts are grown child-like — you so slight 
and small. 

Where did our journeys cross. 

That I passed you on the way? 

For years have brought us each a different dross, 

And somehow we are different to-day. 

[178] 



CITY TIDES 



HILL SLOPES 

1 TRAVELLED along the road 
That wound deep into the lap of the vale. . . . 
And all about me was stubble, and wailing pine, 
And flaking birches. 

And I lifted my arms and with dry lips 
Cried for the beauty of hill-slopes 
Like to those of my dreaming. 

And I came to the other side of the vale, 

And toiled up the mountains. 

Where were desert and dry brush, and alkaline wait- 
ings. 

"Are these the hill-slopes?" I cried in dismay and 
anger. 

And clenched my hands till the blood ran white in 
them. 

Then I turned and beheld the far road I had travelled, 

And it was fair with pines, 

And young birches, and fair with grasses, 

And the beauty of hill-slopes 

Like to those of my dreaming ! 

[179] 



CITY TIDES 



ON HEARING DEBUSSY'S "UAPRES-MIDI 
D'UN FAUNE'' 

TENDER strains of music shimmer in the air 
Like young green leaves torn unwilling from 

the bough; 
And thru the leaf-land filters the pale sun 
Melting upon the marshes; 

Silently slides and wanders the thin-dripping water 
White and clear, gleaming adown rock-ledges 
And drenched roots 
Into a still, untrammelled pool. 
The sun warms along the bank, its stealthy finger 

moving 
Stirs grass and waving sedge into life, 
Kisses them into being. 
While over the still vale, placid and silent with late 

springtime, 
Broods the pale sky. 
With the bright quiet of the lengthening dcj. 

Then sudden across the valley crashes the lilt of 
laughter, 
[180] 



CITY TIDE S 



DEBUSSY'S ''L'APRES-MIDI D'UN FAUNE" (Continued), 
A flash of pink palms clapped fast to fluttering folds 

of veilings, 
A rout in a visible arpeggio, 
Young forms, white and ivory. 
Disport in a mad whirl down the hills . . . and into 

the shadow. 

But thou shalt not have them, O faun, 

For they are enamoured with Daphnis and his sleek 

companions, 
With Youth and waxen-armed boys whose lips are 

redder than thine, 
And they laugh and mock thy crude shagginess 
And thy stupid hoofs rattling amid the pebbles 

rudely. 
Thine but a scarf — dropped by a passing dream, 
Warm meshes to cling about thy fingers. 
To lie tender and scented against thy rough lips, 
Still redolent of that which of late it embraced. 
Like a flower the wind pulls loose from a rose-tree 
And drops in a white rain upon the grass, 
Its petals scattered. 

Thou hast but a dream, faun, and a glow of fading 

fire in thy heart 
And the smart of their laughter, 

[181] 



CITY TIDES 



DEBUSSY'S "UAPBES-MIDI D'UN FAUNE" (Contifmed). 
For it rings mockingly down the breeze 
Light as the fragrance of distant blossoms 
Growing wild and ribald in the lusty oat-fields. 

Thou hast sighed for a zephyr, 

Thou hast sought to embrace the wind — 

Sought to catch its wonder in thy clumsy fingers. . . . 

And a silken wisp is all thy gain. 

Return to thy dreams, faun, lest I too mock thee. 

Lie down to thy fancies and vain thoughts 

Under the pale sun sifting thru the leaf-net, 

Brocading the grasses and rocks 

With the inarticulate glow of April afternoon ; 

And in thy slumber 

Perhaps the harlot breeze will soothe thy empty 

longings. 
Scattered silent and light across the broad meads of 

the lengthening day. 



[182] 



CITY TIDES 



S 



EASTWARD HO! 

INGING, let us lift the anchor, sweep across the 

sapphire sea, 
To the dawn that, languor-laden, shakes her dewy 

pinions free; 
Leave behind the tawdry towers, faintly blinking in 

the dusk, 
Seek the Eastern temples, heavy with their mingled 

nard and musk. 

In the mystic shades of Luxor, tread the broad and 

painted halls. 
Seek the serpent of the morning where the Nile in 

tumult falls. 

Eastward, eastward, ever eastward, to the plains of 

Kurdistan, 
To the walls of grey Damascus, to the vales of 

Astrakhan. 
Gather roses where the Persian waters murmur to 

the slave. 
Where the crimson petals shower over singing Omar's 

grave. 

[183] 



CITY TIDES 

EASTWARD HO! (Contirmed). 

On to Madras, where the dark-ejed Brahman throngs 
the hot bazaars, 

Down the Bramaputra gliding, in the glory of the 
stars. 

Strip the Indies of their treasure, eat the lotus of 
Romance, 

Lose ye in the endless wonder of the smoky seas' ex- 
panse; 

In the caverns of the mystic vision, let us linger, 
nay — 

Sink enraptured in Nirvana, death in life, and night 
in day ! 



[184] 



CITY TIDES 



GATES OF HORN 

UNDER the weeping moon have I wept, lonely, 
Under the darkness have I been brushed by 

dream- wings. 
(O dreams, the fairy-godmothers of men, 
The evanescent enchantresses!) 
Once in a dream I saw love, and ever after 
When I came close to love by day 
Its face was false to mine enchanted eyes, 
For it was not like to my dreaming. 
Once I touched love in a dream. 
And then I learned the bitter pain of dawn 
Bringing afresh the fleetness of visions, 
And the inevitable awakening to reality and the ache 
Of fancies, tear-sweet, hardly touched . . . then 

lost! 



[185] 



CITY TIDES 



FOR THE OPENING OF A MUSIC HALL 

HERE falls the song that rose within men's 
hearts 
When Nature wakened unto Life and Joy. 
And here the voice of those who dreamed, and wove 
A panoply to gird hearts yet unborn. 
Here is the long roll of the ocean's swell 
Rising like a Titan's thundering chant beneath 
Beethoven's manly melody ; and here 
The fresh wood-notes of vibrant Mendelssohn ; 
Here Wagner's mighty music of the spheres, 
Snatched from the tempests flaming in the skies 
. . . Ay, from the very foot-rests of the gods. . . . 
Storms down upon the air and smites the rocks 
Of hardened spirits, rending them in twain 
And opening heaven to the after calm. 
Then do men leave the caves of toil for rest, 
And in pure sunlight are renewed; aye, cloaked 
With fires of Genius, fallen from the stars, 
Bound into cadences and rare harmonies, 
And flung, a heaven-made garment, on the soul 
To armour it for Life. 

[186] 



CITY TIDES 



ANSWERS 

OUT of the mass and maze of creeds, 
Up from the devious paths that wind, 
Born from men's dreams, and hopes and needs, 
Burdened with altars, charms, and beads — 
What is the answer I shall find? 

Tired of the endless how, and why. 
Tired of the questions, tired of search, 
Sick of the may a, joys that fly 
Ever ahead, when seeming nigh. 
Sick of the book, and bell, and church, 

Baffled, I turn to the crowded street. 
Night is afoot ; the deep sky broods 
Green-purple, and the air is sweet 
With winds deep-scented, warm and fleet — 
Where now is room for creeds and feuds? 

I only know that the night is rare ; 

I only know that the music-stuff* 

Of a voice long-heard, and loved, is there. 

All that I know is — Lije is fair! 

It is enough . . . enough ! 

[187] 



CITY TIDES 



QUEST 

OH, I have hungered and thirsted so for love, 
Seeking love everywhere, in lone and in 

crowded places. 
I have sought love in cities, 
And found laughter I could not share. 
And tears I could not understand. 
I have sought love in the meadows and sleeping vales 
All sun-lit. 

And found silences I could not bear. 
I have sought love by night, down the diaphanous 

steeps of the mists. 
And found only a mystery I could not answer. 

And yet, could I only have found love. . . . 



[188] 



CITY TIDES 



THE JAPANESE CHILD TO THE TREE 

1AM driving a nail into thy heart, O cherry-tree, 
Driving a nail to kill thee, 
While all thy boughs are in scented bloom 
Like pink butterflies restlessly fluttering their wings 
In the Spring breezes. For I know 
That soon all thy petals will fall. 
And thou shalt weep in the Spring rain. 

So I am killing thee now, ere thy lovely blooms de- 
part. 
Cruel am I, yet kind, to slay thee now. 
For thou shalt never know living after love is gone 
And beauty fled ; 

Ah, more bitter than the northern almond 
Is it to outlive love ! 



[189] 



CITY TIDES 



STARS 

1HAVE walked boldly into the tangled Howers and 
ecstasy of Spring, 
Stumbling over Beauty in the daisies at my feet ; 
For my eyes were fixed on the heavens 
Searching thru the glare of the noon, for the white, 

silent stars 
I had heard of, 
And which I had longed for. 
So I did not see the golden earth-stars at my feet. 

Who would seek stars at noon, because they shone 

so fair last night? 
Who but Youth? 

And who, with eyes uplifted, could sweep the skies, 
With Beauty so, so near . . . too near for worship ? 
Who but Youth? 



[190] 



CITY TIDES 



THE DIFFERENCE 

WHEN men move out of a house, 
They hang up a sign, "To Let"— 
And they close the windows and doors, 
Leaving it empty and alone. 

When Love moves out of its house 

Men smile a hollow smile, 

And lights are in the windows — music echoes faint- 

Tho unseen crape flutters from the door. 



[191] 



CITY TIDES 



SONG FROM THE YUCATANESE 

MY days are days of dreaming, 
And my nights — nights of endless yearning 
When the great gold moon-god gleaming, 
Lights up the wave with his burning. 
My hours are slow in their going. 
Like the heavy stream that glides 
In easy washes flowing 
To the restless tides. 

Thine eyes are eyes of dreaming. 
And thine arms — arms of .yearning. 
And thy dark locks hang gleaming. 
And thy lips — thy lips are burning. 
But my hours are slow in their leaving, 
Yet the love that my bosom hides 
Is bearing me out on its heaving 
And restless tides. 



[192] 



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